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In this paper we will discuss analytically the perturbations created from a slowly rolling subdominant spectator field which decays much before the end of inflation. The quantum fluctuations of such a spectator field can seed perturbations…
We initiate the study of multi-field inflation using holography. Bulk light scalar fields correspond to nearly marginal operators in the boundary theory and the dual quantum field theory is a deformation of a CFT by such operators. We…
Due to intra-field gravitational interactions, field configurations have a strong negative component to their energy density at the planckian and transplanckian scales, conceivably resulting in a sequestration of the transplanckian field…
An exploratory study of the cosmology of moduli in string theory. Moduli are argued to be natural inflaton fields and lead to a robust inflationary cosmology in which inflation takes place at the top of domain walls. The amplitude of…
A heavy scalar field such as moduli or an inflaton generally mixes with a field responsible for the supersymmetry breaking. We study the scalar decay into the standard model particles and their superpartners, gravitinos, and the…
We calculate the power spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations in an open inflationary model in which inflation occurs in two stages. First an epoch of old inflation creates a large, smooth universe, solving the horizon and homogeneity…
It is shown that double inflation (two minimally coupled massive scalar fields) can produce correlated adiabatic and isocurvature primordial perturbations. Depending on the two relevant parameters of the model, the contributions to the…
We build an effective field theory of multi-field inflationary fluctuations based on the adiabatic perturbation and on any number of matter fluctuations in the non-adiabatic sector, without imposing extra symmetries on the latter. Focusing…
In the MSSM, cosmological scalar field condensates formed along flat directions of the scalar potential (Affleck-Dine condensates) are typically unstable with respect to formation of Q-balls, a type of non-topological soliton. I discuss the…
We analyse the spectrum of energy density fluctuations of a dual supergravity model where the dilaton and the moduli are stabilized and sucessful inflation is achieved inside domain walls that separate different vacua of the theory.…
We consider a supersymmetric grand unified model which naturally solves the strong CP and mu problems via a Peccei-Quinn symmetry and leads to the standard realization of hybrid inflation. We show that the Peccei-Quinn field of this model…
We compute the primordial scalar, vector and tensor metric perturbations arising from quantum field inflation. Quantum field inflation takes into account the nonperturbative quantum dynamics of the inflaton consistently coupled to the…
The scale--independence of the primordial curvature perturbation suggests that it comes from the vacuum fluctuation during inflation of a light scalar field. This field may be the inflaton, or a different `curvaton' field. The observation…
We investigate primordial non-Gaussianity and dark matter isocurvature fluctuations in the modulated reheating and the curvaton scenarios. In these scenarios, large non-Gaussianity can be generated, on the other hand, depending on how dark…
We investigate the effects of large inhomogeneities in both the inflaton field and its momentum. We find that in general, large kinetic perturbations reduce the number of e-folds of inflation. In particular, we observe that inflationary…
We discuss the potentially important role played by preheating in certain variants of the curvaton mechanism in which isocurvature perturbations of a D-flat (and F-flat) direction become converted to curvature perturbations during…
We compute the primordial scalar, vector and tensor metric perturbations arising from quantum field inflation. Quantum field inflation takes into account the nonperturbative quantum dynamics of the inflaton consistently coupled to the…
The axion is the most attractive candidate to solve the strong CP problem in QCD. If it exists, the inflationary universe produces axion fluctuations which are mixtures of isocurvature and adiabatic fluctuations in general. We investigate…
We derive an uncertainty relation for the energy density and pressure of a quantum scalar field in a time-dependent, homogeneous and isotropic, classical background, which implies the existence of large fluctuations comparable to their…
We characterise the primordial perturbations produced due to both inflaton and curvaton fluctuations in models where the curvaton has a quadratic, cosine or hyperbolic potential, and the inflaton potential is characterised by the usual…