Related papers: Multiple inflation and the WMAP 'glitches'
In this paper, inflationary cosmology is reviewed, paying particular attention to its observational signatures associated with large-scale density perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations. In the most general scalar-tensor theories…
A model is developed in which the inflaton potential experiences a sudden small change in its second derivative (the effective mass of the inflaton). An exact treatment demonstrates that the resulting density perturbation has a quasi-flat…
If an adiabatic density perturbation is responsible for large scale structure and the cmb anisotropy, its spectral index $n$ will be measured in the forseeable future with an accuracy $\Delta n\sim .01$. This is precisely the kind of…
Primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation lead to the B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background and a stochastic gravitational wave background in the Universe. We will explore the current constraint on the tilt…
The statistical properties of the primordial density perturbations has been considered in the past decade as a powerful probe of the physical processes taking place in the early universe. Within the inflationary paradigm, the properties of…
Within the context of supersymmetric hybrid inflation, we study a multiple-stage inflationary scenario that can generate a primordial spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations with a break at $k_b \simeq 0.05 h Mpc^{-1}$. The presence of…
Inflationary cosmology has proved to be the most successful at predicting the properties of the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this essay we show that quantum field renormalization significantly…
Our universe may have formed via bubble nucleation in an eternally-inflating background. Furthermore, the background may have a compact dimension--the modulus of which tunnels out of a metastable minimum during bubble nucleation--which…
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
We derive the implications for anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background following from a model of inflation in which a bare cosmological constant is gradually screened by an infrared process in quantum gravity. The model predicts…
We expose the scenarios of primordial baryon-photon plasma evolution within the framework of the Milne-like universe models. Recently, such models find a second wind and promise an inflation-free solution of a lot of cosmological puzzles…
An important prediction of inflation is the production of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background. Observing this background is challenging due to the weakness of the signal and the simultaneous presence of an astrophysical…
We investigate whether a recently proposed modulation of the power spectrum of primordial density fluctuations generated through transplankian (maybe stringy) effects during inflation can be observed. We briefly review the mechanism leading…
We present the first computation of the cosmological perturbations generated during inflation up to second order in deviations from the homogeneous background solution. Our results, which fully account for the inflaton self-interactions as…
When a light scalar field is present during inflation, its value will vary on superhorizon scales, modulating the preheating process at the end of inflation. Consequently, the amplitude of the gravitational wave (GW) background produced…
The primordial spectrum of fluctuations may present a large peak as a result of enhancing features during inflation. This may include, but is not limited to, bumps in the inflaton's potential, phases of ultra-slow-roll or turns in…
We study the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy in the scenario with late-decaying scalar condensations which arise in many class of cosmological scenarios based on supersymmetric models. With such a scalar condensation \phi, 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…
Inflation creates both scalar (density) and tensor (gravity wave) metric perturbations. We find that the tensor mode contribution to the CMB anisotropy on large-angular scales can only exceed that of the scalar mode in models where the…
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…