Related papers: Inflation with Massive Spin-2 Ghosts
We investigate an inflationary scenario driven by a complex scalar field nonminimally coupled to gravity and subject to a non-symmetric complex potential. The real part of the potential controls the cosmological background and realizes a…
In the hope of avoiding model dependence of the cosmological observables, phenomenological parametrizations of Cosmic Inflation have recently been proposed. Typically, they are expressed in terms of two parameters associated with an…
If the inflaton is a pseudo-scalar axion, the axion shift symmetry can protect the flatness of its potential from too large radiative corrections. This possibility, known as natural inflation, requires an axion scale which is greater than…
Power spectra always play an important role in the theory of inflation. In particular, the ability to reproduce the galaxy matter power spectrum and the CMB temperature angular power spectrum coefficients to high accuracy is often…
We study inflation driven by a slow-rolling inflaton field, characterised by a quadratic potential, and incorporating radiative corrections within the context of supergravity. In this model the energy scale of inflation is not overly…
We consider inflation within the context of what is arguably the simplest non-metric extension of Einstein gravity. There non-metricity is described by a single graviscalar field with a non-minimal kinetic coupling to the inflaton field…
Extensions of the Standard Model and general relativity featuring a UV fixed point can leave observable implications at accessible energies. Although mass parameters such as the Planck scale can appear through dimensional transmutation, all…
It is well known that in manifestly Lorentz invariant theories with nontrivial kinetic terms, perturbations around some classical backgrounds can travel faster than light. These exotic "supersonic" models may have interesting consequences…
In light of BICEP2, we reexamine single field inflationary models in which the inflaton is a composite state stemming from various four-dimensional strongly coupled theories. We study in the Einstein frame a set of cosmological parameters,…
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.…
A sizeable tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as recently claimed by BICEP2, would imply a scale of inflation at the typical scale of supersymmetric grand unification. This could be an accident, or strong support for supersymmetric theories.…
We introduce conformal coupling of the Standard Model Higgs field to gravity and discuss the subsequent modification of $R^2$-inflation. The main observation is a lower temperature of reheating which happens mostly through scalaron decays…
Allowing for the possibility of large extra dimensions, the fundamental Planck scale $M$ could be anywhere in the range $\TeV\lsim M\lsim \mpl$, where $\mpl=2.4\times 10^{18}\GeV$ is the four-dimensional Planck scale. If $M\sim\TeV$,…
We consider a broad class of inflationary models that arise naturally in supergravity. They are defined in terms of a parameter $\alpha$ that determines the curvature and cutoff of these models. As a function of this parameter, we exhibit…
We analyze a two-field inflationary model consisting of the Ricci scalar squared ($R^2$) term and the standard Higgs field non-minimally coupled to gravity in addition to the Einstein $R$ term. Detailed analysis of the power spectrum of…
Observable quantities in cosmology are dimensionless, and therefore independent of the units in which they are measured. This is true of all physical quantities associated with the primordial perturbations that source cosmic microwave…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
We study the inflationary perturbations in general (classically) scale-invariant theories. Such scenario is motivated by the hierarchy problem and provides natural inflationary potentials and dark matter candidates. We analyse in detail all…
We investigate the chaotic inflationary model using the two-loop effective potential of a self-interacting scalar field theory in curved spacetime. We use the potential which contains a non-minimal scalar curvature coupling and a quartic…
Assuming the space dimension is not constant but decreases during the expansion of the Universe, we study chaotic inflation with the potential $m^2\phi^2/2$. Our investigations are based on a model Universe with variable space dimensions.…