Related papers: Small-scale Tests of Inflation
Inflation typically predicts a quasi scale-invariant spectrum of gravitational waves. In models of slow-roll inflation, the amplitude of such a background is too small to allow direct detection without a dedicated space-based experiment…
We study classes of inflation models driven by antisymmetric tensor field, with minimal and nonminimal couplings to gravity, that address known issues of such models considered in the past. First we show that with a different choice of the…
We determine the frequency of regions of small-field inflation in the Wigner landscape as an approximation to random supergravities/type IIB flux compactifications. We show that small-field inflation occurs exponentially more often than…
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…
The presence of multiple fields during inflation might seed a detectable amount of non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbations, which in turn becomes observable in present data sets like the cosmic microwave background (CMB) or the large…
The leading candidate for the very early universe is described by a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. While the standard paradigm invokes a single slow-rolling field, many different models may be constructed which fit the…
We study the production of gravitational waves from primordial scalar perturbations in double-inflection-point inflation, in which one of the inflection points predicts the power spectra consistent with CMB observations at large scales and…
Detection of the gravitational waves excited during inflation as quantum mechanical fluctuations is a key test of inflation and crucial to learning about the specifics of the inflationary model. We discuss the potential of Cosmic Background…
We investigate the degree to which the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) can be used to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity coming from the presence of spinning particles coupled to the inflaton. We compute the $\langle TTT \rangle$ and…
One of the major predictions of inflation is the existence of a stochastic background of cosmological gravitational waves (GW). These gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies from primordial magnetic fields are studied. In addition to the known passive and the compensated mode we discuss an inflationary magnetic mode in the curvature perturbation,…
The motion of a pseudo-scalar field $X$ during inflation naturally induces a significant amplification of the gauge fields to which it is coupled. The amplified gauge fields can source characteristic scalar and tensor primordial…
Recent tentative findings of non-Gaussian structure in the COBE-DMR dataset have triggered renewed attention to candidate models from which such intrinsic signature could arise. In the framework of slow roll inflation with built-in non…
We study scale dependence of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum in a class of small, single-field models of inflation which lead to a high value of the tensor to scalar ratio. The inflaton potentials that we consider are…
Massive particles produced during inflation impact soft limits of primordial correlators. Searching for these signatures presents an exciting opportunity to uncover the particle spectrum in the inflationary epoch. We present…
Recently, we have shown that scalar spectra with lower power on large scales and certain other features naturally occur in {\it punctuated inflation}, i.e. the scenario wherein a brief period of rapid roll is sandwiched between two stages…
We study the imprints of massive particles with spin on cosmological correlators. Using the framework of the effective field theory of inflation, we classify the couplings of these particles to the Goldstone boson of broken time…
Single field inflationary models that seek to greatly enhance small scale power in order to form primordial black holes predict both a squeezed bispectrum that is enhanced by this small scale power and a potentially detectable enhancement…
Inflation as the leading paradigm depicting the very early universe physics could leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Using currently available CMB observations, we give the tightest constraints on inflation…
We study temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation sourced from primordial cross-bispectra between metric perturbations and vector fields, which are generated from the inflation model where…