Related papers: Finite inflation in curved space
The inflationary paradigm is extremely successful regarding predictions of temperature anisotropies in the CMB. However, inflation also makes predictions for a CMB B-mode polarization, which has not been detected. Moreover, the standard…
We discuss several opportunities involving cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations during the post-MAP era. The curl-modes of CMB polarization allow a direct detection of inflationary gravitational waves and a measurement of the…
Quasiopenness seems to be generic to multi-field models of single-bubble open inflation. Instead of producing infinite open universes, these models actually produce an ensemble of very large but finite inflating islands. In this paper we…
The lack of large-angle correlations in the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) conflicts with predictions of slow-roll inflation. But though probabilities (< 0.24%) for the missing correlations disfavor the conventional…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
We consider a non-inflationary early Universe scenario in which relevant scalar perturbations get frozen out at some point, but then are defrosted and follow a long nearly Minkowskian evolution before the hot era. This intermediate stage…
Recent cosmic microwave background observations favor low energy scale inflationary models in a closed universe. However, onset of inflation in such models for a closed universe is known to be severely problematic. In particular, such a…
We constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a (possibly correlated) cold dark matter (CDM) or baryon isocurvature component. We use both a phenomenological approach, where the primordial…
We investigate the potential of observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure in the Universe to detect possible modifications of standard inflationary models by physics beyond the Planck…
Natural inflation is a well-motivated model for the early universe in which an inflaton potential of the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone form, $V(\phi) = \Lambda^4[1 + \cos{(\phi/f)}]$, can naturally drive a cosmic accelerated epoch. This paper…
Quantum effect on the BB-mode correlation spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background for several inflation models is studied with the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck joint data. The results do not rule out either single or multi field models of…
We use the most recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) data to perform a Bayesian statistical analysis and discuss the observational viability of inflationary models with a non-minimal coupling,~$\xi$, between the inflaton field and the…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy (spatial inhomogeneity) data provide the tightest constraints on the Hubble constant, matter density, spatial curvature, and dark energy dynamics. Other data, sensitive to the evolution of only…
Inflationary theory predicts that the observable Universe should be very close to flat, with a spatial-curvature parameter |Omega_K| < 10^-4. The WMAP satellite currently constrains |Omega_K| < 0.01, and the Planck satellite will be…
Using an approximate likelihood method adapted to band--power estimates, we analyze the ensemble of first generation cosmic microwave background anisotropy experiments to deduce constraints over a six--dimensional parameter space describing…
In the last few decades, advances in observational cosmology have given us a standard model of cosmology. We know the content of the universe to within a few percent. With more ambitious experiments on the way, we hope to move beyond the…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies, as observed by independent astronomical missions such as WMAP, Planck, and most recently the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope have…
I present recent work aimed at showing how currently competing theories of the early universe leave their imprint on the temperature anisotropies of the CMB radiation. We consider the 3-point correlation function, as well as the inherent…
In this paper, we investigate some consequences of multiple-field inflation for the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). We derive expressions for the amplitudes, the spectral indices and the derivatives of the indices of the CMB…
The observed power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is consistent with inflationary cosmology, which predicts a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum of quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field as they exit the Hubble…