Related papers: Hidden Dark Matter from Starobinsky Inflation
We consider an extension of the Starobinsky model, whose parameters are functions of an extra scalar field. Our motivation is to test the robustness (or sensitivity) of the Starobinsky inflation against mixing scalaron with another (matter)…
Axions are among the best motivated dark matter candidates. Their production in the early Universe by the vacuum misalignment mechanism gives rise to isocurvature perturbations, which are constrained by cosmic microwave background…
Inflation can occur near a point of inflection in the potential of flat directions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In this paper we elaborate on the complementarity between the bounds from Cosmic Microwave Background…
The seed of dark matter can be generated from light spectator fields during inflation through a similar mechanism that the seed of observed large scale structures are produced from the inflaton field. The accumulated energy density of the…
We compute corrections to the inflationary potential due to conformally coupled non-relativistic matter. We find that under certain conditions of the matter coupling, inflation may be interrupted abruptly. We display this in the…
The subjects of this thesis are the invisible axion and the more general family of axion-like particles. The invisible axion is a hypothetical elementary particle and a cold dark matter candidate. I present an improved computation of the…
We investigate the possibility of achieving post-inflationary reheating exclusively through the gravitational interaction in Starobinsky inflation, which itself assumes nothing but gravity. We consider the possibility that the reheating…
We consider an alternative cold dark matter candidate, ultralight bosons ($m>10^{-22}$eV) described by a complex scalar field (SFDM) with global U(1) symmetry, with comoving particle number density conserved after particle production during…
We present a scenario of vector dark matter production during inflation containing a complex inflaton field which is charged under a dark gauge field and which has a symmetry breaking potential. As the inflaton field rolls towards the…
We study the possibility that, after inflation, the inflaton reaches thermal equilibrium with the Standard Model thermal bath and eventually freezes-out in the non-relativistic regime. When the inflaton decay is the sole source of…
We consider supersymmetric inflation models in which inflation occurs at an intermediate scale and which provide a solution to the $\mu$ problem and the strong CP problem. Such models are particularly attractive since inflation,…
We explore the possibility that the dark matter is a condensate of a very light vector boson. Such a condensate could be produced during inflation, provided the vector mass arises via the Steuckelberg mechanism. We derive bounds on the…
We discuss the phenomenology of the minimal inflation scenario. We concentrate on two aspects: inflationary trajectories and particle production. Our findings can be summarized in two main results: first, that inflationary trayectories that…
The "gravitational baryogenesis" scenario is extended to generate both baryon and dark matter asymmetries, in the matter dominated era corresponding to post-inflationary reheating. A minimal extension requires a singlet fermion X for dark…
We study a model of inflation with multiple pseudo-scalar fields coupled to a $U(1)$ gauge field through Chern-Simons interactions. Because of parity violating interactions, one polarization of the gauge field is amplified yielding to…
A novel realization of the Starobinsky inflationary model within a moderate extension of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is presented. The proposed superpotential is uniquely determined by applying a continuous R and a Z_2…
We investigate dark matter (DM) phenomenology and cosmic inflation within a unified framework based on a dark $U(1)_D$ gauge extension of the Standard Model (SM). The associated dark gauge boson, namely the dark photon, serves as a viable…
The primordial inflation dilutes all matter except the quantum fluctuations which we see in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Therefore the last phases of inflation must be embedded within a beyond the Standard Model (SM)…
Recently, a spin one half matter field with mass dimension one was discovered, called Elko spinors. The present work shows how to introduce these fields into a curved spacetime by the standard covariantisation scheme. After formulating the…
Diverse cosmological and astrophysical observations strongly hint at the presence of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe. One of the main goals of Cosmology is to explain the nature of these two components. It may well be that both…