Related papers: Escape from the swamp with spectator
Multi-field inflation with a curved scalar geometry has been found to support background trajectories that violate the slow-roll, slow-turn conditions and thus have the potential to evade the swampland constraints. In order to understand…
We build an effective field theory of multi-field inflationary fluctuations based on the adiabatic perturbation and on any number of matter fluctuations in the non-adiabatic sector, without imposing extra symmetries on the latter. Focusing…
We consider cosmological consequences of string theory tachyon condensation. We show that it is very difficult to obtain inflation in the simplest versions of this theory. Typically, inflation in these theories could occur only at…
The implications of the recently proposed Trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC) are analyzed in the context of warm inflation. It is found that for a single-stage accelerated expansion the constraints imposed by the censorship are…
Assuming that the early universe had (i) a description using perturbative string theory and its field theory limit (ii) an epoch of slow-roll inflation within a four-dimensional effective field theory and a hierarchy of scales $M_{inf} <…
We consider inflation in a five -dimensional space time with the inflaton field confined to live on a brane world. In this scenario, we study different types of potentials for the inflaton, discuss their observational consequences, and…
Recent detection of $B$-mode polarization induced from tensor perturbations by the BICEP2 experiment implies so-called large field inflation, where an inflaton field takes super-Planckian expectation value during inflation, at a high energy…
Based on random matrix theory, we compute the likelihood of saddles and minima in a class of random potentials that are softly bounded from above and below, as required for the validity of low energy effective theories. Imposing this bound…
Studies of the initial conditions for inflation have conflicting predictions from exponential suppression to inevitability. At the level of phase space, this conflict arises from the competing intuitions of CPT invariance and…
We consider inflation in a universe with a positive cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field, in which the field couples both quadratically and quartically to the Ricci scalar. When considered in the Einstein frame and…
We investigate the possible effect of cosmological-constant type dark energy during the inflation period of the early universe. This is accommodated by a new dispersion relation in de Sitter space. The modified inflation model of a…
Many models of high energy physics possess metastable vacua. It is conceivable that the universe can get trapped in such a false vacuum, irrespective of its origin and prior history, at an earlier stage during its evolution. The ensuing…
The curvaton scenario for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represents an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario of inflation in which the observed density perturbations are due to…
A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that…
We discuss structure formation in models with a spectator field in small-field inflation which accommodate a secondary period of inflation. In such models, subgalactic scale primordial fluctuations can be much suppressed in comparison to…
Typically the fluctuations generated from a decaying field during inflation do not contribute to the large scale structures. In this paper we provide an example where it is possible for a field which slowly rolls and then decays during…
We explore the three-point amplitude of curvature perturbations in scenarios suggested by high-scale supersymmetry breaking in String Theory, where the inflaton is forced to climb a steep exponential potential. We can do it at the price of…
Higher-form flux that extends in all 3+1 dimensions of spacetime is a source of positive vacuum energy that can drive meta-stable eternal inflation. If the flux also threads compact extra dimensions, the spontaneous nucleation of a bubble…
We study the contribution of spectator massive scalar fields to the inflationary density perturbations through the universal gravitational coupling. We find that such contribution has several remarkable properties: it does not decrease as…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…