Related papers: Fitting string inflation to real cosmological data…
We analyse the efficiency of future large scale structure surveys to unveil the presence of scale dependent features in the primordial spectrum --resulting from cosmic inflation-- imprinted in the distribution of galaxies. Features may…
In this article we will overview several aspects of the string landscape, namely intersecting D-brane models and their statistics, possible model independent LHC signatures of intersecting brane models, flux compactification, moduli…
We study the effects of the interaction terms between the inflaton fields on the inflationary dynamics in multi-field models. With power law type potential and interactions, the total number of e-folds may get considerably reduced and can…
Large field excursions are required in a number of axion models of inflation. These models also possess global cosmic strings, around which the axion follows a path mirroring the inflationary trajectory. Cosmic strings are thus an…
We explore the possibility of obtaining inflation in weakly coupled heterotic string theory, where the model dependent axions are responsible for driving inflation. This model can be considered as a certain extrapolation of…
In scalar-tensor theories the scalar fields generically couple nontrivially to gravity. We study the observable properties of inflationary models with non-minimally coupled inflaton and Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term. Within the…
We review the constraints that the recently released Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Planck data put on inflation and we argue that single field slow-roll inflationary scenarios (with minimal kinetic term) are favored. Then, within this…
By considering simple, but representative, models of brane inflation from a single brane-antibrane pair in the slow roll regime, we provide constraints on the parameters of the theory imposed by measurements of the CMB anisotropies by WMAP…
Cosmic strings provide a radically different paradigm for the formation of structure to the prevailing inflationary one. They afford some extra technical complications: for example, the calculation of the power spectrum of matter and…
We review recent progress in string model building in both early and late time cosmology. We describe the main theoretical and phenomenological features of an entire class of inflationary models where inflation is driven by a type IIB…
We explore inflationary cosmology in a theory where there are two scalar fields which non-minimally couple to the Ricci scalar and an additional $R^2$ term, which breaks the conformal invariance. Particularly, we investigate the slow-roll…
We present a general set-up for inflation in string theory where the inflaton field corresponds to Wilson lines in compact space in the presence of magnetic fluxes. T-dualities and limits on the value of the magnetic fluxes relate this…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
We present an explicit embedding of axionic N-flation in type IIB string compactifications where most of the Kahler moduli are stabilised by perturbative effects, and so are hierarchically heavier than the corresponding N >> 1 axions whose…
Following Freivogel {\it et al} we consider inflation in a predictive (or `friendly') region of the landscape of string vacua, as modeled by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Kachru. In such a region the dimensionful coefficients of…
The ability to test and constrain theories of cosmic inflation will advance substantially over the next decade. Key data sources include cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and observations of the distribution of matter at…
When Inflation is embedded in a fundamental theory, such as string theory, it typically begins when the Universe is already substantially larger than the fundamental scale [such as the one defined by the string length scale]. This is…
We consider inflation driven near a saddle point in a higher dimensional field space, which is the most likely type of slow roll inflation on the string theoretical landscape; anthropic arguments need to be invoked in order to find a…
The recently proposed Swampland Criteria aim to evade any (meta-)stable de Sitter constructions within String landscapes, making it difficult to accommodate accelerating phases, like dark energy domination and inflationary epoch, in…
Supersymmetry is the most natural framework for physics above the TeV scale, and the corresponding framework for early-Universe cosmology, including inflation, is supergravity. No-scale supergravity emerges from generic string…