Related papers: Constraining the inflaton potential with gravitati…
We examine the possibility that an epoch of inflationary expansion induces high-frequency oscillations of Newton's constant, $G$. The effect occurs because inflation can shift the expectation value of a non-minimally coupled,…
We summarize three recent efforts to constrain the first few moments of cosmic creation before and during the epoch of inflation. We consider two means to explain a slight dip in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background for…
Large excursion of the inflaton field can trigger interesting dynamics. One important example is a first-order phase transition in a spectator sector which couples to the inflaton. Gravitational waves (GWs) from such a first-order phase…
In a recent paper, which has been published in Nature, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) obtained an upper limit on the stochastic gravitational-wave background of cosmological origin by using the data from a two-year science run of…
The early Universe after inflation may have oscillations, kinations (nonoscillatory evolution of a field), topological defects, relativistic and non-relativistic particles at the same time. The Universe whose energy density is a sum of…
We make use of classical lattice simulations in 3 + 1 dimensions to study the preheating stage of Higgs Inflation in Einstein-Cartan gravity. Focusing for concreteness on a simplified scenario involving the seminal Nieh-Yan term, we…
It is shown that the efficiency of the universe heating by an inflaton field depends not only on the possible presence of parametric resonance in the production of scalar particles but also strongly depends on the character of the inflaton…
In this letter we bring together the physics of preheating, following a period of inflation, and the dynamics of non-topological solitons, namely oscillons. We show that the oscillating condensate that makes up an oscillon can be an…
The expansion history and content of the Universe between the end of inflation and the onset of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis is mostly unknown. In this paper, we study gravitational waves (GWs) induced by matter isocurvature fluctuations in a…
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…
The early Universe inflation is well known as a promising theory to explain the origin of large scale structure of the Universe, a causal theory for the origin of primordial density fluctuations which may explain the observed density…
The universe may have extra spatial dimensions with large volume that we cannot perceive because the energy required to excite modes in the extra directions is too high. Many examples are known of such manifolds with a large volume and a…
We present analytic results for the gravitational wave power spectrum induced in models where the inflaton is coupled to a fermionic pseudocurrent. We show that although such a coupling creates helically polarized fermions, the polarized…
Assuming that inflation is succeeded by a phase of matter domination, which corresponds to a low temperature of reheating $T_r<10^9\rm{GeV}$, we evaluate the spectra of gravitational waves induced in the post-inflationary universe. We work…
Assuming that inflation is followed by a phase where the energy density of the Universe is dominated by a component with a general equation of state, we evaluate the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves induced in the…
We discuss features of the inflaton potential that can lead to a strong enhancement of the power spectrum of curvature perturbations. We show that a steep decrease of the potential induces an enhancement of the spectrum by several orders of…
We consider gravitational wave production due to parametric resonance at the end of inflation, or ``preheating''. This leads to large inhomogeneities which source a stochastic background of gravitational waves at scales inside the comoving…
An oscillating inflaton field induces small amplitude oscillations of the Hubble parameter at the end of inflation. These Hubble parameter induced oscillations, in turn, trigger parametric particle production of all light fields, even if…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…
In warm inflation, dissipation due to the interactions of the inflaton field to other light degrees of freedom leads naturally to the enhancement of the primordial spectrum during the last 10-20 efolds of inflation. We study this effect in…