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The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
I review the standard analysis of adiabatic scalar and tensor perturbations produced by slow-roll inflation driven by a single scalar field, before going on to discuss recent work on the role of non-adiabatic modes during and after…
After primordial inflation, the universe may have experienced a prolonged reheating epoch, potentially leading to a phase of matter domination supported by the oscillating inflaton field. During such an epoch, perturbations in the inflaton…
The running-mass inflation model, which has strong motivation from particle physics, predicts density perturbations whose spectral index is strongly scale-dependent. For a large part of parameter space the spectrum rises sharply to short…
Recently multi-field inflation models that can produce large scalar fluctuations on small scales have drawn a lot of attention, primarily because they could lead to primordial black hole production and generation of large second-order…
We study the possibility that particle production during inflation can source the required power spectrum for dark matter (DM) primordial black holes (PBH) formation. We consider the scalar and the gauge quanta production in inflation…
Cosmological $\alpha$-attractors stand out as particularly compelling models to describe inflation in the very early universe, naturally meeting tight observational bounds from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We investigate…
Phantom Cosmology provides an unique opportunity to "connect" the phantom driven (low en- ergy meV scale) dark energy phase to the (high energy GUT scale) inflationary era. This is possible because the energy density increases in phantom…
During slow-roll inflation, non-perturbative transitions can produce bubbles of metastable vacuum. These bubbles expand exponentially during inflation to super-horizon size, and later collapse into black holes when the expansion of the…
Single field models of inflation capable to produce primordial black holes usually require a significant departure from the standard, perturbative slow-roll regime. In fact, in many of these scenarios, the size of the slow-roll parameter…
Currently there is no definitive description for the accelerated expansion of the Universe at both early and late times; we know these two periods as the epochs of inflation and dark energy. Contained within this Thesis are two studies of…
We propose an extension of the scalaron-Higgs model by a non-minimal coupling of the Standard Model Higgs boson to the quadratic Ricci scalar resulting in a Higgs-dependent scalaron mass. The model predicts a successful stage of effective…
Primordial black holes (PBH) can form in the early Universe from peaks of the primordial curvature perturbations. The statistics of the peaks determines the abundance of PBHs, and is related to the amplitude of the primordial curvature…
As a nonbaryonic explanation of massive compact halo objects, a phenomenological model is presented which predicts formation of primordial black holes at a desired mass scale. The required feature of initial density fluctuation is realized…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
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…
Inflation provides a suitable environment for the formation of Primordial Black Holes(PBHs). In this article, we examine the formation of primordial black holes in the Mutated Hilltop inflation model coupled with the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet…
Primordial blackholes formed in the early Universe via gravitational collapse of over-dense regions may contribute a significant amount to the present dark matter relic density. Inflation provides a natural framework for the production…
We investigate the production of primordial black holes and gravitational waves in composite hybrid inflation. Starting from an effective chiral Lagrangian with a dilaton and pions, we identify inflation occurring due to the walking…
We review here some recent results that show that inflationary cosmological models must contain initial singularities. We also present a new singularity theorem. The question of the initial singularity re-emerges in inflationary cosmology…