Related papers: Colliding Ghosts: Constraining Inflation with the …
The primordial four-point function encodes a wealth of information about the inflationary Universe. Despite extensive theoretical work, most models of four-point physics have never been compared to data. In this series, we conduct a…
We present a powerful new diagnostics by which the running of scalar spectral index of primordial density fluctuations can be tightly and independently constrained. This new diagnostics utilizes coherent rotation of void galaxies, which can…
Supersymmetry plays a fundamental role in the radiative stability of many inflationary models. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry inevitably leads to fields with masses of order the Hubble scale during inflation. When these fields couple…
Attempts at building an unified description of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions usually involve several stages of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We consider the effects of such symmetry breaking during an era of primordial…
A shift symmetry is a ubiquitous ingredient in inflationary models, both in effective constructions and in UV-finite embeddings such as string theory. It has also been proposed to play a key role in certain Dark Energy and Dark Matter…
Speed matters. How the masses and spins of new particles active during inflation can be read off from the statistical properties of primordial density fluctuations is well understood. However, not when the propagation speeds of the new…
Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) have cemented the notion that the large-scale Universe is both statistically homogeneous and isotropic. But is it invariant also under reflections? To probe this we require…
In the setup of ghost condensation model the generalized second law of black hole thermodynamics can be respected under a radiatively stable assumption that couplings between the field responsible for ghost condensate and matter fields such…
We calculate the scalar-induced gravitational wave energy density in the theory of Ghost Inflation, assuming scale invariance and taking into account both the power spectrum- and trispectrum-induced contributions. For the latter we consider…
In this paper, we present compelling evidence for the parity asymmetry (a discrete symmetry that is separate from isotropy) in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) map, measured through two-point temperature correlations. This parity…
The effective field theory (EFT) of inflation provides an essential picture to explore the effects of the unknown high energy physics in the single scalar field inflation models. For a generic EFT of inflation, possible high energy…
Single field inflationary models are investigated within Palatini quadratic gravity represented by $R+\alpha R^2$ along with a non-minimal coupling of the form $f(\phi) R$ between the inflaton field $\phi$ and the gravity. The treatment is…
Detecting parity violation on cosmological scales would provide a striking clue to new physics. Large-scale structure offers the raw statistical power -- many three-dimensional modes -- to make such tests. However, for scalar observables,…
We re-examine large scalar fields within effective field theory, in particular focussing on the issues raised by their use in inflationary models (as suggested by BICEP2 to obtain primordial tensor modes). We argue that when the large-field…
Phantom Cosmology provides an unique opportunity to "connect" the phantom driven (low en- ergy meV scale) dark energy phase to the (high energy GUT scale) inflationary era. This is possible because the energy density increases in phantom…
A gravitational wave background is expected to emerge from the superposition of numerous gravitational wave sources of both astrophysical and cosmological origin. A number of cosmological models can have a parity violation, resulting in the…
We investigate the validity of effective field theory methods and the decoupling of heavy fields during inflation. Considering models of inflation in which the inflaton is coupled to a heavy (super-Hubble) degree of freedom initially in its…
If time-translations are spontaneously broken, so are boosts. This symmetry breaking pattern can be non-linearly realized by either just the Goldstone boson of time translations, or by four Goldstone bosons associated with time translations…
Under the existence of chiral non-Gaussian sources during inflation, the trispectrum of primordial curvature perturbations can break parity. We examine signatures of the induced trispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
We consider the ghost-free higher order corrections to the Starobinsky model in the old minimal supergravity. In general, higher order corrections cannot be forbidden by symmetries, which likely violate the flatness of the scalaron…