Related papers: Small-scale Tests of Inflation
We study inflationary scenarios driven by a scalar field in the presence of a non-minimal coupling between matter and curvature. We show that the Friedmann equation can be significantly modified when the energy density during inflation…
The recent data from the Boomerang and MAXIMA-1 balloon flights have marked the beginning of the precision era of Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy (CMB) measurements. We investigate the observational constraints from the current CMB…
Primordial gravitational waves are a crucial prediction of inflation theory, and their detection through their imprints on the cosmic microwave background is actively being pursued. However, these attempts have not yet been successful. In…
I discuss how parameters describing inflation in the very early universe may be related to primordial perturbation spectra. Precision observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) such as those provided by the WMAP…
In this work we investigate the inflationary era in the presence of a canonical scalar field and Chern-Simons parity violating corrections. It was also assumed that a non minimal coupling between curvature and the scalar field is present.…
The recent BICEP2 detection of, what is claimed to be primordial $B$-modes, opens up the possibility of constraining not only the energy scale of inflation but also the detailed acceleration history that occurred during inflation. In turn…
We carry out numerical investigations of the perturbations in Nflation models where the mass spectrum is generated by random matrix theory. The tensor-to-scalar ratio and non-gaussianity are already known to take the single-field values,…
We explore a broad class of three-parameter inflationary models, called the $\Lambda$-inflation, and its observational predictions: high abundance of cosmic gravitational waves consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum of primordial…
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…
The bispectrum of primordial curvature perturbations in the squeezed configuration, in which one wavenumber, $k_3$, is much smaller than the other two, $k_3\ll k_1\approx k_2$, plays a special role in constraining the physics of inflation.…
Large field inflation models are favored by the recent BICEP2 that has detected gravitational wave modes generated during inflation. We study general large field inflation models for which the potential contains (constant) quadratic and…
In solid inflation the single field non-Gaussianity consistency condition is violated. As a result, the long tensor perturbation induces observable clustering fossils in the form of quardupole anisotropy in large scale structure power…
We use Minkowski Functionals to explore the presence of non-Gaussian signatures in simulated cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. Precisely, we analyse the non-Gaussianities produced from the angular power spectra emerging from a class…
We present limits on the fraction of large angle microwave anisotropies which could come from tensor perturbations. We use the COBE results as well as smaller scale CMB observations, measurements of galaxy correlations, abundances of galaxy…
We study the possibility that particle production during inflation could source observable gravity waves on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. A crucial constraint on such scenarios arises because particle…
We study both the background evolution and cosmological perturbations of anisotropic inflationary models supported by coupled scalar and vector fields. The models we study preserve the U(1) gauge symmetry associated with the vector field,…
The representation theory of de Sitter space allows for a category of partially massless particles which have no flat space analog, but could have existed during inflation. We study the couplings of these exotic particles to inflationary…
Primordial non-Gaussianities from multi-field inflation are a leading target for cosmological observations, because of the possible large correlations generated between long and short distances. These signatures are captured by the local…
We explore extensions of hybrid inflationary models in the context of supersymmetric D-term inflation. We point out that a large variety of inflationary scenarios can be encountered when the field content is extended. It is not only…
We investigate the potential for the LISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced from different mechanisms during inflation. Focusing on well-motivated scenarios, we study the resulting…