Related papers: Lowering tensor-to-scalar ratio by pre-inflationar…
The inflationary paradigm is an important cornerstone of the concordance cosmological model. However, standard inflation cannot fully address the transition from an early homogeneous and isotropic stage, to another one lacking such…
According to the common wisdom, between a fraction of the mHz and few Hz the spectral energy density of the inflationary gravitons can be safely disregarded even assuming the most optimistic sensitivities of the space-borne detectors. In…
We review the dynamics of spectator scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the post-inflationary Universe, with particular emphasis on scenarios where the end of inflation is followed by a period of kination. In this context, the…
We investigate the prior dependence of constraints on cosmic tensor perturbations. Commonly imposed is the strong prior of the single-field inflationary consistency equation, relating the tensor spectral index nT to the tensor-to-scalar…
We study how inflationary observables associated with primordial tensor modes are affected by coupling the minimal field content with an extra spin-2 particle during inflation. We work with a model that is ghost-free at the fully non-linear…
We point out that the theoretical predictions for the inflationary observables may be generically altered by the presence of fields which are heavier than the Hubble rate during inflation and whose dynamics is usually neglected. They…
We propose a new mechanism of non-thermal particle production during inflation based on a narrow parametric resonance, akin to the dynamics of post-inflationary preheating. The mechanism is based on the production of scalar particles with a…
A scalar potential obtained from the $D$-term in the Supergravity models, which dominates over $F$ term and is mainly responsible for the inflationary phase in the early universe, is studied. The potential with canonical kinetic terms for…
BICEP2 has observed a primordial gravitational wave corresponding to the tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.16. It seems to require a super-Planckian inflationary model. In this paper, we propose a double hybrid inflation model, where the inflaton…
Evidence for the presence of extra fields during inflation may be found in the anisotropies of the scalar and tensor spectra across a vast range of scales. Indeed, beyond the single-field slow-roll paradigm, a long tensor mode can modulate…
I discuss the current status of inflationary cosmology in light of the recent WMAP 3-year data release. The basic predictions of inflation are all supported by the data. Inflation also makes predictions which have not been well tested by…
Extensions of the Standard Model typically contain ``flaton fields" defined as fields with large vacuum expectation values and almost flat potentials where scalar self-coupling is small or vanishes at tree level. Such potentials have been…
Primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology acquire classical properties through decoherence when their wavelengths become larger than the Hubble scale. Although decoherence is effective, it is not complete, so a significant part of…
Generically, the gravitational-wave or tensor-mode contribution to the primordial curvature spectrum of inflation is tiny if the field-range of the inflaton is much smaller than the Planck scale. We show that this pessimistic conclusion is…
We describe a new mechanism that gives rise to dissipation during cosmic inflation. In the simplest implementation, the mechanism requires the presence of a massive scalar field with a softly-broken global $U(1)$ symmetry, along with the…
The tensor to scalar ratio is affected by the evolution of the large-scale gauge fields potentially amplified during an inflationary stage of expansion. After deriving the exact evolution equations for the scalar and tensor modes of the…
A double hybrid inflationary scenario in non-minimal supergravity which can predict values of the tensor-to-scalar ratio up to about 0.05 is presented. Larger values of this ratio would require unacceptably large running of the scalar…
We study the primordial scalar and tensor perturbations in inflation scenario involving a spectator dilaton field. In our setup, the rolling spectator dilaton causes a tachyonic instability of gauge fields, leading to a copious production…
We identify the effective theory describing inflationary super-Hubble scales and show it to be a special case of effective field theories appropriate to open systems. Open systems allow information to be exchanged between the degrees of…
One of the key predictions of the standard inflationary paradigm is the quantum mechanical generation of the transverse and traceless tensor fluctuations due to the rapid accelerated expansion of space, which later constitute a stochastic…