Related papers: Colliding Ghosts: Constraining Inflation with the …
We construct the Supersymmetric Effective Field Theory of Inflation, that is the most general theory of inflationary fluctuations when time-translations and supersymmetry are spontaneously broken. The non-linear realization of these…
We revisit perturbative unitarity in scalar field inflation with a nonminimal coupling, with Higgs inflation serving as the most prominent example. Although such models are phenomenologically successful, it is critical to examine whether or…
We assess the range of validity of sgoldstino-less inflation in a scenario of low energy supersymmetry breaking. We first analyze the consistency conditions that an effective theory of the inflaton and goldstino superfields should satisfy…
We examine the consequences of Lorentz violation during slow-roll inflation. We consider a canonical scalar inflaton coupled, through its potential, to the divergence of a fixed-norm timelike vector field, or "aether." The vector is…
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…
We present a new mechanism for slow-roll inflation based on higher dimensional supersymmetric gauge theory compactified to four dimensions with twisted (supersymmetry breaking) boundary conditions. These boundary conditions lead to a…
Single-field models of $\alpha$-attractor quintessential inflation provide a unified picture of the two periods of early- and late-time cosmic acceleration, where both inflation and dark energy are described by a single scalar degree of…
We consider inflation within a model framework where the Higgs boson arises as a pseudo-Goldstone boson associated with the breaking of a global symmetry at a scale significantly larger than the electroweak one. We show that in such a model…
The cosmological implication of a double inflation model with hybrid + new inflations in supergravity is studied. The hybrid inflation drives an inflaton for new inflation close to the origin through supergravity effects and new inflation…
In this work we investigate the inflationary phenomenological implications of a recently developed ghost-free Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity. The resulting theory can be viewed as a scalar Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity, so by…
Precise cosmological data from WMAP and forthcoming CMB experiments motivate the study of the quantum corrections to the slowroll inflationary parameters.We find the quantum (loop) corrections to the equations of motion of the classical…
We consider a new inflationary model in which an antisymmetric tensor field $A_{\nu\rho\sigma}$ and its four-form field strength $F_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}=4\partial_{[\mu} A_{\nu\rho\sigma]}$ are coupled to the scalar sector of the standard…
Quantum gravity computations suggest the existence of an ultraviolet and an infrared fixed point where quantum scale invariance emerges as an exact symmetry. We discuss a particular variable gravity model for the crossover between these…
The effective field theory of inflation is a powerful tool for obtaining model independent predictions common to large classes of inflationary models. It requires only information about the symmetries broken during the inflationary era, and…
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
We construct gravitational modifications that go beyond Horndeski, namely theories with extended nonminimal derivative couplings, in which the coefficient functions depend not only on the scalar field but also on its kinetic energy. Such…
The general structure of Hybrid Inflation remains a very well-motivated mechanism for lower-scale cosmic inflation in the face of improving constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio. However, as originally modeled, the "waterfall" field in…
Massive particles produced during inflation impact soft limits of primordial correlators. Searching for these signatures presents an exciting opportunity to uncover the particle spectrum in the inflationary epoch. We present…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
Inflationary scenarios motivated by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) where five scalar fields are non-minimally coupled to gravity are considered. The potential of the model and the function of non-minimal coupling are…