Related papers: Testing scale-invariant inflation against cosmolog…
We perform a precision investigation of smooth quintessential inflation in which a single canonical scalar field unifies the two known phases of cosmic acceleration. Using a CMB-normalized runaway exponential potential, we obtain sharply…
We discuss ability of the harmonic pattern of peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum to test inflation. By studying robust features of alternate models, which must all be isocurvature in nature, we reveal signatures unique to inflation.…
Recent measurements by the {\it Planck} experiment of the power spectrum of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) reveal a deficit of power in low multipoles compared to the predictions from best-fit…
Forthcoming missions probing the absolute intensity of the CMB are expected to be able to measure spectral distortions, which are deviations from its blackbody distribution. As cosmic inflation can induce spectral distortions, these…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy observed by WMAP has an anomalous dip at l~20 and bump at l~40. One explanation for this structure is the presence of features in the primordial curvature…
We argue that a $\Lambda$-inflation model can ensure large relative contribution of cosmic gravity waves into the $\Delta T/T$ at COBE scale preserving at the same time a near scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological density perturbations…
Amongst the multitude of inflationary models currently available, models that lead to features in the primordial scalar spectrum are drawing increasing attention, since certain features have been found to provide a better fit to the CMB…
A particularly attractive feature of inflation is that quantum fluctuations in the inflaton field may have seeded inhomogeneities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the formation of large-scale structure. In this paper, we…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
Allowing for the possibility of large extra dimensions, the fundamental Planck scale $M$ could be anywhere in the range $\TeV\lsim M\lsim \mpl$, where $\mpl=2.4\times 10^{18}\GeV$ is the four-dimensional Planck scale. If $M\sim\TeV$,…
We perform a Bayesian analysis to study possible features in the primordial inflationary power spectrum of scalar perturbations. In particular, we analyse the possibility of detecting the imprint of these primordial features in the…
We argue that the discrepancy between the Planck mass scale and the observed value of the cosmological constant can be largely attenuated if those quantities are understood as a result of effective, and thus scale-dependent, couplings. We…
Inflation is now an accepted paradigm in standard cosmology, with its predictions consistent with observations of the cosmic microwave background. It lacks, however, a firm physical theory, with many possible theoretical origins beyond the…
We consider an inflationary model motivated by quantum effects of gravitational and matter fields near the Planck scale. Our Lagrangian is a re-summed version of the effective Lagrangian recently obtained by Demmel, Saueressig and…
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…
After a brief review of the different approaches to predict the possible quantum gravity corrections to quantum field theory, we discuss in some detail the formulation based on a Gaussian reference frame fixing. Then, we implement this…
We revisit the small field double-well inflationary model and investigate its observational viability in light of the current Cosmic Microwave Background data. In particular, considering scenarios with minimal and nonminimal coupling…
I review the general aspects of cosmological parameter estimation from observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies in the framework of inflationary adiabatic models. The most recent CMB datasets are…
The shift-symmetric coupling of a pseudo-scalar particle driving inflation to gauge fields provides a unique way of probing cosmic inflation. We show for an SU(2) gauge group how a classical isotropic background gauge field develops from…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…