Related papers: Light Fields during Inflation from BOSS and Future…
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 show that the free light scalar fields that may exist in the inflationary Universe can change the predictions of the hybrid inflation model. Possible signatures are discussed, which can be used to discriminate the sources of the…
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…
Upcoming galaxy surveys aim to map the Universe with unprecedented precision, depth and sky coverage. The galaxy bispectrum is a prime source of information as it allows us to probe primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG), a key factor in…
It is conjectured that inflation, taking account of quantum gravity, leads to a discrete spectrum of cosmological perturbations, instead of the continuous Gaussian spectrum predicted by standard field theory in an unquantized background.…
We present a novel mechanism for gravitational wave generation in the early Universe. Light spectator scalar fields during inflation can acquire a blue-tilted power spectrum due to stochastic effects. We show that this effect can lead to…
We show that there are inflationary models for which perturbations in the energy momentum tensor, which are of second order in the scalar field, cannot be neglected. We first specify the conditions under which the usual first order…
Light vector fields during inflation obtain a superhorizon perturbation spectrum when their conformal invariance is appropriately broken. Such perturbations, by means of some suitable mechanism (e.g. the vector curvaton mechanism), can…
We consider the effects of fields with suddenly changing mass on the inflationary power spectra. In this context, when a field becomes light, it will be excited. This process contributes to the tensor power spectrum. We compute these…
I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power…
Models of axion inflation are particularly interesting since they provide a natural justification for the flatness of the potential over a super-Planckian distance, namely the approximate shift-symmetry of the inflaton. In addition, most of…
The bispectrum is the lowest-order statistic sensitive to the shape of structures generated by gravitational instability and is a potentially powerful probe of galaxy biasing and the Gaussianity of primordial fluctuations. Although the…
Primordial perturbations with wavelengths greater than the observable universe shift the effective background fields in our observable patch from their global averages over the inflating space. This leads to a landscape picture where the…
If a light axion is present during inflation and becomes part of dark matter afterwards, its quantum fluctuations contribute to dark matter isocurvature. In this article, we introduce a whole new suite of cosmological observables for axion…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
Fluctuations in the large-scale structure of the Universe contain significant information about cosmological physics, but are modulated in survey datasets by various observational effects. Building on existing literature, we provide a…
The fluctuations generated by Inflation are nearly Gaussian in the simplest models, but may be non-Gaussian in more complex models, potentially leading to signatures in the late Universe. In particular, local type primordial non-Gaussianity…
Galaxy Surveys are enjoying a renaissance thanks to the advent of multi-object spectrographs on ground-based telescopes. The last 15 years have seen the fruits of this experimental advance, including the 2-degree Field Galaxy Redshift…
Recent results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), when combined with Planck and DESI datasets, indicate a scalar spectral index $n_s$ larger than that reported in the Planck 2018 baseline, thereby challenging conventional…
Motivated by the possibility of inflation in the cosmic landscape, which may be approximated by a complicated potential, we study the density perturbations in multi-field inflation with a random potential. The random potential causes the…