Related papers: From heaviness to lightness during inflation
In the framework of chaotic inflation we study the case of a massive scalar field using a semiclassical approach. We derive the energy density fluctuations in the infrared sector generated by matter field and gauge-invariant metric…
We find that the amplitude of quantum fluctuations of the invariant de Sitter vacuum coincides exactly with that of the vacuum of a comoving observer for a massless scalar (inflaton) field. We propose redefining the actual physical power…
We consider an ultra-light scalar field with a mass comparable to (or lighter than) the Hubble parameter of the present universe, and calculate the time evolution of the energy-momentum tensor of the vacuum fluctuations generated during and…
We study the power spectrum of super-Hubble fluctuations of an inflaton-like scalar field, the "system", coupled to another scalar field, the "environment" during de Sitter inflation. We obtain the reduced density matrix for the inflaton…
We study a model for reheating that has been much investigated for parametric resonance, having a quartic interaction of the scalar inflaton with another scalar field. Attention is particularly on the quantum excitations of the inflaton…
We calculate the power spectrum of vacuum fluctuations of a generic scalar field in a quantum cosmological setting that is manifestly singularity-free. The power spectrum is given in terms of the usual scale invariant spectrum plus scale…
We study quantum fluctuations of a free massless scalar field during inflation in the presence of a point, line, or plane defect such as a black hole, cosmic string, or domain wall, using a perturbative expansion in powers of small defect…
We estimate large-scale curvature perturbations from isocurvature fluctuations in the waterfall field during hybrid inflation, in addition to the usual inflaton field perturbations. The tachyonic instability at the end of inflation leads to…
We examine the spectrum of inflaton fluctuations resulting from any given long period of exponential inflation. Infrared and ultraviolet divergences in the inflaton dispersion summed over all modes do not appear in our approach. We show how…
The observed power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is consistent with inflationary cosmology, which predicts a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum of quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field as they exit the Hubble…
The sensitivity of inflationary spectra to initial conditions is addressed in the context of a phenomenological model that breaks Lorentz invariance by dissipative effects above some threshold energy $\Lambda$. These effects are obtained…
We review the dynamics of spectator scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the post-inflationary Universe, with particular emphasis on scenarios where the end of inflation is followed by a period of kination. In this context, the…
We study the parametric amplification of super-Hubble-scale scalar metric fluctuations at the end of inflation in some specific two-field models of inflation, a class of which is motivated by hybrid inflation. We demonstrate that there can…
We investigate the stochastic dynamics of the long wavelength modes of a generic light scalar field that during inflation is coupled to another scalar field. The coupling plays an important role for the fluctuation of the field amplitude…
We investigate linear cosmological perturbations in multiple field inflationary models where some of the directions are light while others are heavy (with respect to the Hubble parameter). By integrating out the massive degrees of freedom,…
We present an explicit cosmological model where inflation and dark energy both could arise from the dynamics of the same scalar field. We present our discussion in the framework where the inflaton field $\phi$ attains a nearly constant…
We propose a possibility that the inflaton potential is significantly modified after inflation due to heavy field dynamics. During inflation there may be a heavy scalar field stabilized at a value deviated from the low-energy minimum. As…
In single field inflationary models, preheating refers to the phase that immediately follows inflation, but precedes the epoch of reheating. During this phase, the inflaton typically oscillates at the bottom of its potential and gradually…
I study the gauge-invariant fluctuations of the metric during inflation. In the infrared sector the metric fluctuations can be represented by a coarse-grained field. We can write a Schroedinger equation for the coarse-grained metric…
During inflation, scalar fields with masses less than the Hubble scale acquire vacuum expectation values (vevs) via stochastic processes driven by quantum fluctuations. For nearly massless spectator scalars transforming nontrivially under a…