Related papers: Is power-law inflation really attractive?
The stochastic approach to inflation suffers from ambiguities due to the arbitrary choice of the time variable and due to the choice of the factor ordering in the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation. Here it is shown that both ambiguities…
We revisit the inflection point inflation with an extended discussion to large field values and consider the reheating effects on the inflationary predictions. Parametrizing the reheating dynamics in terms of the reheating temperature and…
Many different models of inflation give rise to the same effective field theory of the inflaton. While effective field theories in flat space provide little information about UV physics, we propose that in inflationary backgrounds a large…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are…
The primordial power spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations during slow-roll inflation are usually calculated with the method of Bessel function approximation. For constant-roll or ultra slow-roll inflation, the method of Bessel…
This article examines how breaking a Lorentz-invariant description of nature at tiny space-time intervals would affect the non-Gaussian character of the pattern of primordial perturbations left by inflation. We specifically study a set of…
The previously proposed class of phenomenological inflationary models in which the assumption of inflaton slow-roll is replaced by the more general, constant-roll condition is compared with the most recent cosmological observational data,…
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…
We discuss an inflationary scenario based on Lovelock terms. These higher order curvature terms can lead to inflation when there are more than three spatial dimensions. Inflation will end if the extra dimensions are stabilised, so that at…
Power-Law inflation with scale factor $a \propto t^m$ is investigated in the context of warm inflation. The treatment is performed in the weak and strong dissipation limits. In addition, we discuss the three common cases for the thermal…
Recent large scale structure observations, including COBE, have prompted many authors to discuss modifications of the standard Cold Dark Matter model. Two of these, a tilted spectrum and a gravitational wave contribution to COBE, are at…
After a brief summary of general relativity and cosmology, we present the basic concepts underlying inflation, the currently best motivated models for the early Universe. We describe the simplest inflation models, based on a single scalar…
The purpose of these lectures is to give a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the production of primordial perturbations, as well as a review of some of the latest developments in this domain. After a short introduction, we review…
Little is known about the microscopic physics that gave rise to inflation in our universe. There are many reasons to wonder if the underlying description requires a careful arrangement of ingredients or if inflation was the result of an…
We consider the presence and evolution of primordial density perturbations in a cosmological model based on a simple ansatz which captures -- by providing a set of effective gravitational field equations -- the strength of the enhanced…
We review the theory of inflationary perturbations. Perturbations at both linear and nonlinear orders are reviewed. We also review a variety of inflation models, emphasizing their signatures on cosmic perturbations.
The calculation of scalar gravitational and matter perturbations during multiple-field inflation valid to first order in slow roll is discussed. These fields may be the coordinates of a non-trivial field manifold and hence have non-minimal…
It has been pointed out that the perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation may be sensitive to a natural ultraviolet cutoff, thus potentially providing an experimentally accessible window to aspects of Planck scale physics. A priori, a…
In conventional model independent approaches, the power spectrum of primordial perturbations is characterized by such free parameters as spectral index, its running, the running of running, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. In this work we,…
I summarize the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are described. Although the infinity of pocket universes produced by…