Related papers: Clustering of primordial black holes from quantum …
Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes…
During inflation, vacuum quantum fluctuations are amplified and stretched to astrophysical distances. They give rise to fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarisation, and to large-scale structures in our…
We compute the power spectrum of curvature perturbations in stochastic inflation. This combines the distribution of first crossing times through the end-of-inflation surface, which has been previously studied, with the distribution of the…
We calculate the full probability density function (PDF) of inflationary curvature perturbations, even in the presence of large quantum backreaction. Making use of the stochastic-$\delta N$ formalism, two complementary methods are…
We present a generic framework to compute the one-point statistics of cosmological perturbations, when coarse-grained at an arbitrary scale $R$, in the presence of quantum diffusion. Making use of the stochastic-$\delta N$ formalism, we…
The curvature perturbations produced during an early era of inflation are known to have quasi-Gaussian distribution functions close to their maximum, where they are well constrained by measurements of the cosmic microwave background…
The effect of large quantum fluctuations on primordial black-hole formation during an inflationary phase along a plateau is investigated. By using techniques of stochastic inflation in combination with replica field theory and the…
We study the generation of a localized peak in the primordial spectrum of curvature perturbations from a transient dissipative phase during inflation, leading to a large population of primordial black holes. The enhancement of the power…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
The tail of the distribution of primordial fluctuations (corresponding to the likelihood of realization of large fluctuations) is of interest, from both theoretical and observational perspectives. In particular, it is relevant for the…
We simulate the distribution of very rare, large excursions in the primordial density field produced in models of inflation in the very early universe which include a strong enhancement of the power spectrum. The stochastic $\delta…
The physics of primordial black holes can be affected by the non-Gaussian statistics of the density fluctuations that generate them. Therefore, it is important to have good theoretical control of the higher-order correlation functions for…
This paper is a major revision of our previous work on the HST model of inflation. We identify the local fluctuations of the metric with fluctuations of the mass and angular momentum of black holes, and show that the consistency conditions…
We study the non-Gaussian tail of the curvature fluctuation, $\zeta$, in an inflationary scenario with a transient ultra slow-roll phase that generates a localized large enhancement of the spectrum of $\zeta$. To do so, we implement a…
The decoherence of quantum fluctuations into classical perturbations during inflation is discussed. A simple quantum mechanical argument, using a spatial particle wavefunction rather than a field description, shows that observable…
The inflationary origin of primordial black holes (PBHs) relies on a large enhancement of the power spectrum $\Delta_\zeta$ of the curvature fluctuation $\zeta$ at wavelengths much shorter than those of the cosmic microwave background…
We investigate the formation of primordial black holes in curvaton models of inflation, where the curvature perturbation is not only generated by the inflaton but also by a light scalar field (the curvaton) that decays after inflation.…
It is becoming increasingly clear that large but rare fluctuations of the primordial curvature field, controlled by the tail of its probability distribution, could have dramatic effects on the current structure of the universe -- {\it e.g.}…
We explore the role of non-Gaussian fluctuations in primordial black hole (PBH) formation and show that the standard Gaussian assumption, used in all PBH formation papers to date, is not justified. Since large spikes in power are usually…
We propose a new approach for calculating the curvature perturbations produced during inflation in the stochastic formalism. In our formalism, the fluctuations of the e-foldings are directly calculated without perturbatively expanding the…