Related papers: Elastic Inflation
Two extensions of ideas lying in the basis of the inflationary scenario of the early Universe and their effect on the large scale structure of the present-day Universe are discussed. The first of them is the possibility of fast phase…
Non-trivial inflaton self-interactions can yield calculable signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity that are measurable in cosmic surveys. Surprisingly, we find that the phase transition to slow-roll eternal inflation is often incalculable…
In the hope of avoiding model dependence of the cosmological observables, phenomenological parametrizations of Cosmic Inflation have recently been proposed. Typically, they are expressed in terms of two parameters associated with an…
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…
A short introduction to structure formation is given, followed by a discussion of the possible characteristics of the initial perturbations assuming a generic inflationary origin. Observational data related to large-scale structure and the…
We examine the generation and evolution of perturbations in a universe dominated by a fluid with stiff equation of state $p=\rho$. The recently proposed Holographic Universe is an example of such a model. We compute the spectrum of scalar…
The warm inflation scenario is an alternative mechanism which can explain the isotropic and homogeneous Universe which we are living in. In this work I extend a previously introduced formalism, without the restriction of slow - roll regime.…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…
We examine a scalar-tensor model of gravity that is globally scale-invariant. When adapted to a spatially flat Robertson-Walker metric, the equations of motion describe a dynamical system that flows from an unstable de Sitter space to a…
In the standard cosmological picture the Universe underwent a brief period of near-exponential expansion, known as Inflation. This provides an explanation for structure formation through the amplification of perturbations by the rapid…
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 super-inflationary phase is predicted by the Loop Quantum Cosmology. In this paper we study the creation of gravitational waves during this phase. We consider the inverse volume corrections to the equation for the tensor modes and…
We consider the running of the spectral index as a probe of both inflation itself, and of the overall evolution of the very early universe. Surveying a collection of simple single field inflationary models, we confirm that the magnitude of…
We consider the inflationary universe with a spectator scalar field coupled to a $U(1)$ gauge field and calculate curvature perturbation and gravitational waves (GWs). We find that the sourced GWs can be larger than the one from vacuum…
We consider cosmological inflation generated by a scalar field slowly rolling off from a de Sitter maximum of its potential. The models belong to the class of hilltop models and represent the most general model of this kind in which the…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…
We have explicitly demonstrated that scalar coupled Gauss-Bonnet gravity in four dimension can have non-trivial effects on the early inflationary stage of our universe. In particular, we have shown that the scalar coupled Gauss-Bonnet term…
We investigate chaotic inflation models with two scalar fields, such that one field (the inflaton) rolls while the other is trapped in a false vacuum state. The false vacuum becomes unstable when the inflaton field falls below some critical…
We review the prospects for detecting tensor modes generated during inflation by CMB polarization experiments and by searching for a stochastic gravitational wave background with laser interferometers in space. We tackle the following two…
In pursuing the intriguing resemblance of the Einstein equations to thermodynamic equations, most sharply seen in systems possessing horizons, we suggest that eternal inflation of the stochastic type may be a fruitful phenomenon to explore.…