Related papers: Measuring inflaton couplings via dark radiation as…
Observations of the temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation show that the models of inflation with the monomial potentials are inconsistent with the allowed $n_s-r$ bounds. However certain monomial…
We study the observational implications of a class of inflationary models wherein the inflaton is coupled to the Einstein tensor through a generalized non-minimal derivative coupling (GNMDC). In particular, we explore whether these models…
Explaining baryon asymmetry, dark matter and inflation are important elements of a successful theory that extends beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. In this paper we explore these issues within the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric…
The prediction of a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of curvature and tensor fluctuations is among the main features of cosmic inflation. The current measurements of the primordial fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
If cosmic inflation was driven by an electrically neutral scalar field stable on cosmological time scales, the field necessarily constitutes all or part of dark matter (DM). We study this possibility in a scenario where the inflaton field…
Inflation elegantly provides initial conditions for the standard model of cosmology, while solving the horizon, flatness, and magnetic monopole problems. Inflationary models make predictions for the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the…
A radiative seesaw model with an inert doublet dark matter is a promising candidate which could explain the existence of neutrino masses, dark matter and baryon number asymmetry of the Universe, simultaneously. In addition to these issues,…
We investigate the production of non-thermal dark matter (DM), $\chi$, during post-inflationary reheating era. For inflation, we consider two slow roll single field inflationary scenarios - generalized version of Hilltop (GH) inflation, and…
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…
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…
Conventional scenarios of purely gravitationally produced dark matter with masses below the Hubble parameter at the end of inflation are in tension with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraints on the isocurvature power spectrum. We…
The existence of the inflationary era in the early Universe seems to be strongly supported by recent CMB observations. However, only a few realistic inflation scenarios which have close relation to particle physics seem to have been known…
We propose a new mechanism to generate density perturbations in inflationary models. Spatial fluctuations in the decay rate of the inflaton field to ordinary matter lead to fluctuations in the reheating temperature. We argue that in most…
We investigate dark matter (DM) phenomenology and cosmic inflation within a unified framework based on a dark $U(1)_D$ gauge extension of the Standard Model (SM). The associated dark gauge boson, namely the dark photon, serves as a viable…
Heavy particles with masses much bigger than the inflationary Hubble scale $H_*$, can get non-adiabatically pair produced during inflation through their couplings to the inflaton. If such couplings give rise to time-dependent masses for the…
We summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of inflation. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurements to differentiate various inflationary mechanisms. In…
We investigate the out-of-equilibrium production of scalar dark matter (DM) from the inflaton condensate during inflation and reheating. We assume that this scalar couples only to the inflaton via a direct quartic coupling and is minimally…
We investigate the degree to which the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) can be used to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity coming from the presence of spinning particles coupled to the inflaton. We compute the $\langle TTT \rangle$ and…
We explore the phenomenological implications of the latest Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR6 observations, in combination with Planck 2018, BICEP/Keck 2018, and DESI, on the physics of inflation and post-inflationary reheating. We focus…
The standard model Higgs boson can serve as the inflaton field of slow roll inflationary models provided it exhibits a large non-minimal coupling with the gravitational scalar curvature. The Higgs boson self interactions and its couplings…