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In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
We consider inflation driven by an axion-like particle coupled to an SU(2) gauge sector via a Chern-Simons term. Known as chromo-natural inflation, this scenario is in tension with CMB observations. In order to remedy this fact and preserve…
In principle, the tensor metric (gravity-wave) perturbations that arise in inflationary models can, beyond probing the underlying inflationary model, provide information about the Universe: ionization history, presence of a cosmological…
We show that inflationary models with broken rotational invariance generate testable off-diagonal signatures in the correlation between the $\mu$-type distortion and temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. More…
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations are used to constrain reheating to Standard Model (SM) particles after a period of inflation. As a light spectator field, the SM Higgs boson acquires large field values from its quantum…
The nonlinear interaction between one graviton and two scalars is enhanced in specific inflationary models, potentially leading to distinguishable signatures in the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. We…
Primordial statistical anisotropy is a key indicator to investigate early Universe models and has been probed by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. In this paper, we examine tensor-mode CMB fluctuations generated from…
We propose a new class of inflation model, G-inflation, which has a Galileon-like nonlinear derivative interaction of the form $G(\phi, (\nabla\phi)^2)\Box\phi$ in the Lagrangian with the resultant equations of motion being of second order.…
Light new vector bosons can be produced gravitationally through quantum fluctuations during inflation; if these particles are feebly coupled and cosmologically metastable, they can account for the observed dark matter abundance. However, in…
Inflation creates both scalar (density) and tensor (gravity wave) metric perturbations. We find that the tensor mode contribution to the CMB anisotropy on large-angular scales can only exceed that of the scalar mode in models where the…
We present the first computation of the cosmological perturbations generated during inflation up to second order in deviations from the homogeneous background solution. Our results, which fully account for the inflaton self-interactions as…
Thermal fluctuations provide the main source of large scale density perturbations in warm inflationary models of the early universe. For the first time, general results are obtained for the power spectrum in the case when the friction…
We calculate the production of a massive vector boson by quantum fluctuations during inflation. This gives a novel dark-matter production mechanism quite distinct from misalignment or thermal production. While scalars and tensors are…
We show that if the primordial classical perturbations were generated by the gravitational particle creation during inflation, and followed by an evolution of quantum-to-classical transition,the time dependent correlation of these…
The curvaton and the inhomogeneous reheating scenarios for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represent an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario where the observed density perturbations are…
We revisit the possibility of producing observable tensor modes through a continuous particle production process during inflation. Particularly, we focus on the multi-field realization of inflation where a spectator pseudo-scalar $\sigma$…
An important prediction of inflation is the production of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background. Observing this background is challenging due to the weakness of the signal and the simultaneous presence of an astrophysical…
We show how a radiation dominated universe subject to space-time quantization may give rise to inflation as the radiation temperature exceeds the Planck temperature. We consider dispersion relations with a maximal momentum (i.e. a mimimum…
Quantum gravitational back-reaction offers the potential of simultaneously resolving the problem of the cosmological constant and providing a natural model of inflation in which scalars play no special role. In this model inflation begins…
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…