Related papers: A Goldstone Boson Equivalence for Inflation
We go a step further in the search for a consistent and realistic supergravity model of large-field inflation by building a class of models with the following features: during slow-roll, all the scalar fields other than the inflaton are…
Cosmological inflation gives a natural answer for a variety of cosmological questions, including the horizon problem, the flatness problem, and others. However, inflation yields new questions relating to the flatness of the inflaton…
A scale-invariant universe can have a period of accelerated expansion at early times: inflation. We use a frame-invariant approach to calculate inflationary observables in a scale invariant theory of gravity involving two scalar fields -…
In a general single field inflationary model we consider the effects of long wavelength scalar fluctuations on the effective expansion rate and equation of state seen by a class of free falling observers, using a physical gauge invariant…
We discuss a general bound on the possibility to realise inflation in any minimal supergravity with F-terms. The derivation crucially depends on the sGoldstini, the scalar field directions that are singled out by spontaneous supersymmetry…
Quantum fluctuations of an inflaton field, slow-rolling during inflation are coupled to metric fluctuations. In conventional four dimensional cosmology one can calculate the effect of scalar metric perturbations as slow-roll corrections to…
In order to go beyond the mean-field approximation, commonly used in the inflationary computations, an identification of the quantum constituents of the inflationary background is made. In particular, the homogeneous scalar field…
We consider the quasi-de Sitter geometry of the inflationary universe. We calculate the energy flux of the slowly rolling background scalar field through the quasi-de Sitter apparent horizon and set it equal to the change of the entropy…
Higgs inflation is a simple and elegant model in which early-universe inflation is driven by the Higgs sector of the Standard Model. The Higgs sector can support early-universe inflation if it has a large nonminimal coupling to the Ricci…
Multiple axions form a landscape in the presence of various shift symmetry breaking terms. Eternal inflation populates the axion landscape, continuously creating new universes by bubble nucleation. Slow-roll inflation takes place after the…
We construct a model of inflation based on a low-energy effective theory of spontaneously broken global scale invariance. This provides a shift symmetry that protects the inflaton potential from quantum corrections. Since the underlying…
The generic prediction for the perturbations generated during slow--roll, single--field inflation, as they appear in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), is a flat, close--to--Gaussian spectrum. We calculate the general solution for a…
The low energy effective action of quantum gravity may include the higher curvature terms such as the Gauss-Bonnet term. The inflaton dynamics may be affected by the Gauss-Bonnet term if there is an inflaton-Gauss-Bonnet coupling. We show…
We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection point, and we…
Parity violation in the early universe holds great promise for uncovering new physics. In particular, the primordial scalar four-point correlation function is allowed to develop a parity-violating component when massive spinning particles…
In natural inflation models, the inflaton is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson and the flatness of the potential is protected by shift symmetries. In this framework, a successful inflation requires the global symmetry to be spontaneously…
We study the effects of Goldstone modes on the stability of the vacuum in a $U(1)$ theory for a complex scalar field. The dynamics of the field resemble those of Keplerian motion in the presence of time-dependent friction, whose equations…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
We define a new inflationary scenario in which inflation starts naturally after the Big Bang when the energy density drops below some critical value. As a model, we use recently proposed symmetron field whose effective potential depends on…
I study the gauge-invariant fluctuations of the metric during inflation. In the infrared sector the metric fluctuations can be represented by a coarse-grained field. We can write a Schroedinger equation for the coarse-grained metric…