Related papers: Constraining the inflaton potential with gravitati…
As long-lived quasi-solitons from the fragmentation of a scalar condensate, oscillons may dominate the preheating era after inflation. During this period, stochastic gravitational waves can also be generated. We quantify the gravitational…
In the pre-reheating era, following cosmic inflation and preceding radiation domination, the energy density may be dominated by an oscillating massive scalar condensate, such as is the case for quadratic chaotic inflation. We have found in…
Causal soliton formation (e.g. oscillons, Q-balls) in the primordial Universe is expected to give rise to a universal gravitational wave (GW) background, at frequencies smaller than scales of nonlinearity. We show that modifications of the…
After cosmic inflation, coherent oscillations of the inflaton field about a monomial potential $V(\phi)\sim \phi^k$ result in an expansion phase characterized by a stiff equation-of-state $w\simeq(k-2)/(k+2)$. Sourced by the oscillating…
Inflationary cosmology proposes that the early Universe undergoes accelerated expansion, driven, in simple scenarios, by a single scalar field, or inflaton. The form of the inflaton potential determines the initial spectra of density…
We study the non-perturbative evolution of inflationary fluctuations during preheating using fully non-linear general-relativistic field-theory simulations. We choose a single-field inflationary model that is consistent with observational…
Homogeneous oscillations of the inflaton after inflation can be unstable to small spatial perturbations even without coupling to other fields. We show that for inflaton potentials $\propto |\phi|^{2n}$ near $|\phi|=0$ and flatter beyond…
We study the scalar and tensor perturbations generated by the fragmentation of the inflaton condensate into oscillons or transients after inflation, using nonlinear classical lattice simulations. Without including the backreaction of metric…
In this paper we propose a mechanism of natural preheating of our universe by introducing an inflaton field dependent mass term for the gravitational wave for a specific class of massive gravity theory. For any single field inflationary…
Gravitational waves are propagating undulations in the spacetime fabric, which interact very weakly with their environment. In cosmology, gravitational-wave distortions are produced by most of the inflationary scenarios and their…
We investigate two classes of inflationary models, which lead to a stiff period after inflation that boosts the signal of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). In both families of models studied, we consider an oscillating scalar…
In a broad class of scenarios, inflation is followed by an extended era of matter-dominated expansion during which the inflaton condensate is nonrelativistic on subhorizon scales. During this phase density perturbations grow to the point of…
We investigate the post-inflationary evolution of a non-minimally coupled inflaton field in scalar-tensor theories, framed within the flexible framework of Einstein-Cartan gravity. By focusing on a class of simplified Higgs-like scenarios,…
We study numerically the decay of massive and massless inflatons into massive excitations, via a $\phi^2 X^2$ coupling, in the expanding Universe. We find that a wide enough resonance can survive the Universe expansion, though account for…
We develop a new approach to gravitational waves in which the Einstein equations are governed by the cosmological constant which is related to the existence of a manifold which is closed. We study an example in which the matter Lagrangian…
Understanding the physics of inflaton condensate fragmentation in the early Universe is crucial as the existence of fragments in the form of non-topological solitons (oscillons or Q-balls) may potentially modify the evolution of the…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…
Long-lived heavy particles present during the big bang could have a decay channel opened by gravitons. Such decays can produce gravitational waves with large enough abundance to be detectable, and a peculiar narrow spectrum peaked today…
Spherically symmetric oscillatons (also referred to as oscillating soliton stars) i.e. gravitationally bound oscillating scalar lumps are considered in theories containing a massive self-interacting real scalar field coupled to Einstein's…
We consider cosmological scenarios in which density perturbations are generated by the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field at early times; the late time dynamics involves a modulus which first dominates the energy density of the…