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Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
A detection of the primordial gravitational wave background is considered to be the ``smoking-gun '' evidence for inflation. While super-horizon waves are probed with cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization, the relic background will…
We propose a new single field inflation model in which the usual slow-roll inflation is joined to a new period of slow-climb and slow-roll inflation through a short intermediate non-inflationary phase. We then show that primordial curvature…
Recent rigorous results on black hole interiors clearly suggest that the strong cosmic censorship conjecture fails in its most fundamental, i.e. weak, formulation: violations are expected for a class of spherically symmetric charged black…
Eternal inflation predicts our observable universe lies within a bubble (or pocket universe) embedded in a volume of inflating space. The interior of the bubble undergoes inflation and standard cosmology, while the bubble walls expand…
The 2015 Planck data release tightened the region of the allowed inflationary models. Inflationary models with convex potentials have now been ruled out since they produce a large tensor to scalar ratio. Meanwhile the same data offers…
We investigate in the context of brane inflation the possibility of additional light scalar fields generating significant power spectrum and non-Gaussianities at the end of inflation affecting the CMB scale observations. We consider the…
If the inflationary era is preceded by a radiation dominated era in which the inflaton too was in thermal equilibrium at some very early time then the CMB data places an upper bound on the comoving temperature of the (decoupled) inflaton…
We investigate the formation of large peaks in the inflationary curvature power spectrum from double-well potentials. In such scenarios, the initial CMB spectrum is created at large field values. Subsequently, the inflaton will cross one of…
A class of inflationary scenarios for primordial black hole (PBH) formation include a small barrier in the slope of the potential. There, the inflaton slows down, generating an enhancement of primordial perturbations. Moreover, the…
The detection of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background has the potential to reveal unprecedented insights into the early universe, and possibly into the dynamics of inflation. Generically, UV-complete inflationary models…
We investigate the effects of non-zero spatial curvature on cosmic inflation in the light of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements from the Planck 2018 legacy release and from the 2015 observing season of BICEP2 and the…
We consider the effects of inhomogeneous initial conditions in both the scalar field profile and the extrinsic curvature on different inflationary models. In particular, we compare the robustness of small field inflation to that of large…
Using the latest observational data, we constrain the inflationary dynamics and the subsequent reheating epoch. Predictions for both phases can be significantly improved by employing numerically computed results compared to the slow-roll…
Following Philcox et al. (2025), we investigate a scenario with a massive partner to the inflaton ($O(100)$ times the inflationary Hubble scale), in which particles are produced during a narrow time period, leaving characteristic hot- or…
We calculate the bispectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, \zeta, generated during "open inflation." Inflation occurs inside a bubble nucleated via quantum tunneling from the background false vacuum state. Our universe lives inside…
In this contribution we discuss the possibility of generating an observable gravitational wave (GW) background by coupling a pseudo-scalar inflaton to some Abelian gauge fields. This analysis is performed by dividing inflationary models…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
The usual theory of inflation breaks down in eternal inflation. We derive a dual description of eternal inflation in terms of a deformed Euclidean CFT located at the threshold of eternal inflation. The partition function gives the amplitude…
Many existing models of brane inflation suffer from a steep irreducible gravitational potential between the branes that causes inflation to end too early. Inspired by the fact that point masses in 2+1 D exert no gravitational force, we…