Related papers: CMB quadrupole suppression: II. The early fast rol…
We present the first quantum field theory model of inflation that is renormalizable in the matter sector, with a super-Hubble inflaton mass and sub-Planckian field excursions, which is thus technically natural and consistent with a…
We emphasize that the estimation of cosmological parameters from cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data, such as the recent high resolution maps from BOOMERanG and MAXIMA-1, requires assumptions about the primordial spectra. The…
We conduct a model-independent analysis of temporal features during inflation in the large-scale CMB temperature power spectrum allowing for the possibility of non-negligible tensor contributions. Of 20 principal components of the…
Inflation models make specific predictions for a tensor-scalar-scalar three-point correlation, or bispectrum, between one gravitational-wave (tensor) mode and two density-perturbation (scalar) modes. This tensor-scalar-scalar correlation…
We investigate the possible influence of very-high-energy physics on inflationary predictions focussing on whether effective field theories can allow effects which are parametrically larger than order H^2/M^2, where M is the scale of heavy…
In a recent paper [17], we studied the evolution of the background geometry and scalar perturbations in an inflationary, spatially closed Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model having constant positive spatial curvature and…
We show that models of `just enough' inflation, where the slow-roll evolution lasted only $50-60$ e-foldings, feature modifications of the CMB power spectrum at large angular scales. We perform a systematic and model-independent analysis of…
In slow roll inflation, the running of the spectral tilt is generically proportional to the square of the deviation from scale invariance, $\alpha_s \propto (n_s-1)^2$, and it is therefore currently undetectable. We present a mechanism able…
We obtain cosmological constraints on models of inflation which exhibit rapid roll solutions. Rapid roll attractors exist for potentials with large mass terms and are thus of interest for inflationary model building within string theory. We…
There exists some evidence of a suppression in power in the CMB multipoles around $l \sim 20-30$. If taken seriously, this is in tension with the simplest inflationary models driven by a single scalar field with a standard type of slowly…
We study an inflationary scenario where thermal inflation is followed by fast-roll inflation. This is a rather generic possibility based on the effective potentials of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the context of particle physics models.…
We place functional constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential from the cosmic microwave background through a variant of the generalized slow roll approximation that allows large amplitude, rapidly changing deviations from…
Based on quintessence models with anticorrelation between the quintessence fluctuations and adiabatic perturbations in the other matter components, we show that if the quintessence potential is sufficiently steep in the initial era, i.e.,…
The dependence of cosmological and inflationary parameters on time during the last 60 e-folds in inflation is investigated using a slow-roll inflation model. The time dependence of the inflaton field is calculated for the case of chaotic…
We consider supersymmetric inflation with the hybrid-type potential. In the absence of the symmetry that forbids Hubble-induced mass terms, the inflaton mass will be as large as the Hubble scale during inflation. We consider gravitational…
A study of the slow-roll inflation for an exponential potential in the frame of the scalar-tensor theory is performed, where non-minimal kinetic coupling to curvature and non-minimal coupling of the scalar field to the Gauss-Bonnet…
Evidence for the presence of extra fields during inflation may be found in the anisotropies of the scalar and tensor spectra across a vast range of scales. Indeed, beyond the single-field slow-roll paradigm, a long tensor mode can modulate…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
The observed CMB (cosmic microwave background) dipole asymmetry cannot be explained by a single field model of inflation - it inevitably requires more than one field where one of the fields is responsible for amplifying the super-Hubble…
We describe models of single-field inflation with small and sharp step features in the potential (and sound speed) of the inflaton field, in the context of the Effective Field Theory of Inflation. This approach allows us to study the…