Related papers: Colliding Ghosts: Constraining Inflation with the …
A pseudo-scalar inflaton field can have interesting phenomenological signatures associated with parity violation. The existing analyses of these signatures typically assume statistical isotropy. In the present work we instead investigate…
Following Philcox et al. (2025), we investigate a scenario with a massive partner to the inflaton ($O(100)$ times the inflationary Hubble scale), in which particles are produced during a narrow time period, leaving characteristic hot- or…
In our quest to understand the generation of cosmological perturbations, we face two serious obstacles: we do not have direct information about the environment experienced by primordial perturbations during inflation, and our observables…
Many inflationary theories introduce new scalar, vector, or tensor degrees of freedom that may then affect the generation of primordial density perturbations. Here we show how to search a galaxy (or 21-cm) survey for the imprint of…
We show that intrinsic (not lensing-induced) correlations between galaxy shapes offer a new probe of primordial non-Gaussianity and inflationary physics which is complementary to galaxy number counts. Specifically, intrinsic alignment…
For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…
Is there new physics hidden in the four-point function of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)? We conduct a detailed analysis of the Planck PR4 temperature and polarization trispectrum for $\ell\in[2,2048]$. Using the theoretical and…
In the framework of Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories (SUSY GUTs), the universe undergoes a cascade of symmetry breakings, during which topological defects can be formed. We address the question of the probability of cosmic string…
During single clock inflation, hidden fields (i.e. fields coupled to the inflaton only gravitationally) in their adiabatic vacua can ordinarily only affect observables through virtual effects. After renormalizing background quantities…
The main aim of this paper is to provide a qualitative introduction to the cosmic inflation and its relationship with current cosmological observations. The inflationary model solves many of the fundamental problems that challenge the…
A violation of the null energy condition (NEC) during inflation in a single-field inflation model will naturally enhance the amplitude of the parity violation effect (defined by $\Delta\chi$) of inflationary primordial gravitational waves…
We investigate the possibility that the Universe may inflate due to moduli fields, corresponding to flat directions of supersymmetry, lifted by supergravity corrections. Using a hybrid-type potential we obtain a two-stage inflationary…
We present a model of inflation where the inflaton is accommodated as a phantom field which exhibits an initial transient pole behavior and then decays into a quintessence field which is responsible for a radiation era. We must stress that…
In the present thesis, using an effective field theory point of view, we explore theories of single-field inflation where higher derivative operators become relevant, affecting in a novel way the dynamics and therefore the observations. For…
The effective field theory (EFT) of inflation provides a natural framework to study the new physical effects on primordial perturbations. Recently a healthy extension of the EFT of inflation with high-order operators has been proposed,…
Inflationary scenarios motivated by high-energy physics generically contain a plethora of degrees of freedom beyond the primordial curvature perturbation. The latter interacts in a simple way with what we name "inflationary flavor…
We investigate the consequences of a transient phase of enhanced parity violation during inflation. Modeling this phase through a time-localized Chern--Simons-like coupling, we show that it amplifies primordial gravitational waves at small…
In a recent paper, we suggested that the density fluctuation spectra arising from power-law (or extended) inflation, which are tilted with respect to the Harrison--Zel'dovich spectrum, may provide an explanation for the excess large scale…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…
We investigate inflationary models in f(R,T) modified gravity with a kinetic coupling term \omega^2 G^{\mu\nu}\partial_{\mu}\phi\partial_{\nu}\phi having a positive factor needed to remove the ghosts. Taking f(R,T)=R+2\beta T, we calculate…