Related papers: Curvaton-assisted hilltop inflation
We consider D-term inflation for small couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Standard hybrid inflation then ends at a critical value of the inflaton field that exceeds the Planck mass. During the subsequent waterfall transition the…
We show, within the single-field inflationary paradigm, that a linear non-minimal interaction $\xi\,M_P\,\phi\,R$ between the inflaton field $\phi$ and the Ricci scalar $R$ can result in successful inflation that concludes with an efficient…
We show that inflation can naturally occur at a finite temperature T>H that is sustained by dissipative effects, when the inflaton field corresponds to a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson of a broken gauge symmetry. Similarly to "Little Higgs"…
We investigate the inflation for the quartic hilltop model via a certain type of modified gravity. Precisely, we analyze the $F(\phi) T$ term in the Einstein's gravity to examine the quartic hilltop inflation model. $T$ is the trace of the…
We propose a novel scenario of inflation, in which the inflaton is identified as the lightest mode of an angular field in a compactified fifth dimension. The periodic effective potential exhibits exponentially flat plateaus, so that a…
We consider quantum corrections to a recently obtained perturbative form of Starobinsky model to extract information about the initial conditions of the universe leading to cosmological inflation. Integrating out graviton modes, we find…
As a contribution to a viable candidate for a standard model of cosmology, we here show that pre-inflationary quantum fluctuations can provide a scenario for the long-sought initial conditions for the inflaton field. Our proposal is based…
We show how observations of the perturbation spectra produced during inflation may be used to constrain the parameters of general scalar-tensor theories of gravity, which include both an inflaton and dilaton field. An interesting feature of…
The trans-Planckian censorship conjecture implies that single-field models of inflation require an extreme fine-tuning of the initial conditions due to the very low-scale of inflation. In this work, we show how a quantum cosmological…
We study models of inflation where the inflaton corresponds to a flat direction in field space and its mass term is generated by gravity mediated soft supersymmetry breaking at high scale. Assuming the inflaton to have non negligible…
If a coupling between the inflaton and the Gauss-Bonnet term is introduced, many models of inflation that were ruled out by the most recent Planck data can be made viable again. The predictions for the scalar spectral index and…
The relaxion scenario presents an intriguing extension of the standard model in which the particle introduced to solve to the strong CP problem, the axion, also achieves the dynamical relaxation of the Higgs boson mass term. In this work we…
In general a weakly self-interacting curvaton field is expected and the curvaton potential takes the polynomial form. The curvaton potential can be dominated by the self-interaction term during the period of inflation if the curvaton field…
We apply the criterion of finite naturalness to the limiting case of a generic heavy sector decoupled from the Standard Model. The sole and unavoidable exception to this decoupling arises from gravitational interactions. We demonstrate that…
We study initial conditions for inflation in scenarios where the inflaton potential has a plateau shape. Such models are those most favored by Planck data and can be obtained in a large number of model classes. As a representative example,…
Inflation is often described through the dynamics of a scalar field, slow-rolling in a suitable potential. Ultimately, this inflaton must be identified as the expectation value of a quantum field, evolving in a quantum effective potential.…
We consider the curvaton scenario in the context of supersymmetry (SUSY) with gravity-mediated SUSY breaking. In the case of a large initial curvaton amplitude during inflation and a negative order H^2 correction to the mass squared term…
We investigate observational constraints on inflationary parameters in the context of an holographic cosmology with an induced gravity correction. We consider two situations where a universe is firstly filled with a scalar field and…
This thesis presents research exploring aspects of inflation and cosmology in the context of inflation models in which an inflaton is non-minimally coupled to the Ricci scalar, or is considered in conjunction with a term quadratic in the…
Slow-roll inflation requires the inflaton field to have an exceptionally flat potential, which combined with measurements of the scale of inflation demands some degree of fine-tuning. Alternatively, the flatness of the potential could be…