Related papers: A Goldstone Boson Equivalence for Inflation
We explore the inflationary phase of a scalar field with a kinetic term non-minimally coupled to gravity. We find that one of the slow-roll conditions is naturally consequence of the equation of motion of the scalar field. Thus, slow-roll…
A characteristic of D-brane inflation is that fluctuations in the inflaton field can propagate at a speed significantly less than the speed of light. This yields observable effects that are distinct from those of single-field slow roll…
In view of recent interest in high-frequency detectors, broad features of gravitational wave signals from phase transitions taking place soon after inflation are summarized. The influence of the matter domination era that follows the…
We develop a theory of self-resonance after inflation. We study a large class of models involving multiple scalar fields with an internal symmetry. For illustration, we often specialize to dimension 4 potentials, but we derive results for…
Temperature has a significant effect on the properties of quantum field theories (QFTs) with a spontaneously broken symmetry, in particular on the massless Goldstone bosons that exist in the vacuum state. It has recently been shown using…
For the models of inflation driven by the potential energy of an inflaton field $\phi$, the covariant Galileon Lagrangian $(\partial\phi)^2\Box \phi$ generally works to slow down the evolution of the field. On the other hand, if the…
Many alternatives to canonical slow-roll inflation have been proposed over the years, one of the main motivations being to have a model, capable of generating observable values of non-Gaussianity. In this work, we (re-)explore the physical…
In [arXiv:1102.1513] we introduced an inflationary scenario, Non-Abelian Gauge Field Inflation or gauge-flation for short, in which slow-roll inflation is driven by non-Abelian gauge field minimally coupled to gravity. We present a more…
We investigate the non-Gaussianities of inflation driven by a single scalar field coupling non-minimally to the Einstein Gravity. We assume that the form of the scalar field is very general with an arbitrary sound speed. For convenience to…
We study inflation driven by a slow-rolling inflaton field, characterised by a quadratic potential, and incorporating radiative corrections within the context of supergravity. In this model the energy scale of inflation is not overly…
Motivated by the prospect of testing inflation from precision cosmic microwave background observations, we present analytic results for scalar and tensor perturbations in single-field inflation models based on the application of uniform…
Non-Gaussianities of the primordial density perturbations have emerged as a very powerful possible signal to test the dynamics that drove the period of inflation. While in general the most sensitive observable is the three-point function in…
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…
For relativistic quantum field theories, we consider Lorentz breaking, spatially homogeneous field configurations or states that evolve in time along a symmetry direction. We dub this situation "spontaneous symmetry probing" (SSP). We…
Non-trivial inflaton self-interactions can yield calculable signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity that are measurable in cosmic surveys. Surprisingly, we find that the phase transition to slow-roll eternal inflation is often incalculable…
We consider inflation driven near a saddle point in a higher dimensional field space, which is the most likely type of slow roll inflation on the string theoretical landscape; anthropic arguments need to be invoked in order to find a…
The viability of slow-roll approximation is examined by considering the structure of phase spaces in scalar-tensor theories of gravitation and the analysis is exemplified with a nonminimally coupled scalar field to the spacetime curvature.…
We examine the effective theory of single-field inflation in the limit where the scalar perturbations propagate with a small speed of sound. In this case the non-linearly realized time-translation symmetry of the Lagrangian implies large…
The inflationary paradigm is an important cornerstone of the concordance cosmological model. However, standard inflation cannot fully address the transition from an early homogeneous and isotropic stage, to another one lacking such…
Inflation based on scalar fields which are non-minimally coupled to gravity has been proposed as a way to unify inflation with weak-scale physics, with the inflaton being identified with the Higgs boson or other weak-scale scalar article.…