Related papers: A Cosmic Microscope for the Preheating Era
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
We use numerical relativity to study the violent preheating era at the end of inflation. This epoch can result in highly nonlinear fluctuations in density and gravitational potential which feed back onto the averaged expansion rate -- an…
We study the effect of global topology of the spatial geometry on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for closed flat and closed hyperbolic models in which the spatial hypersurface is multiply connected. If the CMB temperature…
This paper concludes our semi-analytic study of preheating in inflationary models comprised of multiple scalar fields coupled nonminimally to gravity. Using the covariant framework of paper I in this series, we extend the rigid-spacetime…
Recent progress in the preheating phenomena for inflationary cosmology is reviewed. We first discuss estimates of the preheating time scale and particle production at the early stages of parametric amplification within the Mathieu and Lam'e…
The standard model of cosmology with nearly Gaussian, isotropic, scale invariant and adiabatic initial conditions describes the cosmological observations well. However, the study of any deviation from the mentioned conditions will open up a…
There are at present more then 30 theories about the origin of cosmic magnetic fields at galactic and intergalactic scales. Most of them rely on concepts of elementary particle physics, like phase transitions in the early Universe, string…
We explore the ways in which primordial magnetic fields influence the thermal and ionization history of the post-recombination universe. After recombination the universe becomes mostly neutral resulting also in a sharp drop in the radiative…
Modern cosmology has now emerged as a testing ground for theories beyond the standard model of particle physics. In this paper, we consider quantum fluctuations of the inflaton scalar field on certain noncommutative spacetimes and look for…
We propose a new way of studying the Higgs potential at extremely high energies. The Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson, as a light spectator field during inflation in the early Universe, can acquire large field values from its quantum…
Light scalar fields such as axions and string moduli can play an important role in early-universe cosmology. However, many factors can significantly impact their late-time cosmological abundances. For example, in cases where the potentials…
Primordial gravitational waves propagate almost unimpeded from the moment they are generated to the present epoch. Nevertheless, they are subject to convolution with a non-trivial transfer function. Within the standard thermal history,…
Long-wavelength gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background. Distinguishing this from anisotropy induced by energy density fluctuations is critical for testing inflationary cosmology…
We consider inhomogeneous preheating in multi-field models of cosmological perturbation. After preheating, two fields are trapped at an enhanced symmetric point. One field is an oscillating field and the other is a light field that plays an…
The presence of non--Gaussian features in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps represents one of the most long--awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation, still needing confirmation.…
Radiation propagating over cosmological distances can probe light weakly interacting pseudoscalar (or scalar) particles. The existence of a spin-0 field changes the dynamical symmetries of electrodynamics. It predicts spontaneous generation…
Light scalar fields typically develop spatially varying backgrounds during inflation. Very often they do not directly affect the density perturbations, but interact with other fields that do leave nontrivial signals in primordial…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
We investigate an inflationary model of the universe based on the assumption that space-time is noncommutative in the very early universe. We analyze the effects of space-time noncommutativity on the quantum fluctuations of an inflaton…
We consider the generation of super-horizon metric fluctuations during an epoch of preheating in the presence of a scalar field \chi quadratically coupled to the inflaton. We find that the requirement of efficient broad resonance is…