Related papers: Inflation, structure formation and dark matter
This lecture course covers cosmology from the particle physicist perspective. Therefore, the emphasis will be on the evidence for the new physics in cosmological and astrophysical data together with minimal theoretical frameworks needed to…
Light scalar and pseudoscalar particles are compelling dark matter candidates, with a vast running experimental program to discover them. Previous studies have shown that these light fields can generate sizable isocurvature perturbations in…
We present a model which contains a new complex scalar field $\Psi$, interacting with a new real scalar field, $\chi$, and an effective potential whose symmetry is almost exact, being explicitly broken by Planck-scale effects. We study the…
We describe the implications of cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and galaxy and cluster surveys of large scale structure (LSS) for theories of cosmic structure formation, especially emphasizing the recent Boomerang and Maxima…
We review the theory of inflationary perturbations. Perturbations at both linear and nonlinear orders are reviewed. We also review a variety of inflation models, emphasizing their signatures on cosmic perturbations.
A new mechanism for producing axion dark matter is proposed. By invoking low-scale inflation and a kinetic mixing between the axion and the inflaton, it is shown that the axion is driven to a field point slightly displaced from the…
Scalar fields in the minimal supersymmetric standard model may have large field values during inflation. Because of approximate global symmetry, it is plausible that the phase directions of them are nearly massless during inflation and…
We present a new approach to constructing inflationary models in closed universes. Conformal embedding of closed-universe models in a de Sitter background suggests a quantisation condition on the available conformal time. This condition…
When did the universe thermalize? In this talk I review the status of this issue and its importance in establishing the expected properties of dark matter, the growth of large-scale structure, and the viability of inflation models when…
We review the current status of cosmological parameters, dark energy and large-scale structure, from a theoretical and observational perspective. We first present the basic cosmological parameters and discuss how they are measured with…
An unresolved question in inflationary cosmology is the assignment of probabilities to different types of events that can occur in the eternally inflating multiverse. We explore the possibility that the resolution of this "measure problem"…
In this talk, based on \cite{Kane:2001rb}, we emphasise that intermediate scale supersymmetric inflation models are particularly attractive since inflation, baryogenesis and the relic abundance of cold dark matter (CDM) are all related by a…
Recently, a supersymmetric model of dark energy coupled to cold dark matter, the supersymmetron, has been proposed. In the absence of cold dark matter, the supersymmetron field converges to a supersymmetric minimum with a vanishing…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
Over the past few decades, a consensus picture has emerged in which roughly a quarter of the universe consists of dark matter. I begin with a review of the observational evidence for the existence of dark matter: rotation curves of…
The purpose of the paper, of which this is part II, is to review, clarify, and critically analyse modern mathematical cosmology. The emphasis is upon mathematical objects and structures, rather than numerical computations. Part II provides…
These lecture notes intend to form a short pedagogical introduction to inflationary cosmology, highlighting selected areas of recent progress such as reheating and the theory of cosmological perturbations. Problems of principle for…
We construct an explicit scenario whereby the same material driving inflation in the early Universe can comprise dark matter in the present Universe, using a simple quadratic potential. Following inflation and preheating, the density of…
Recently, it was proposed that a small true vacuum universe can inflate spontaneously, in principle. Furthermore, there should be matter creation in vacuum inflation due to quantum fluctuations, and the matter created will influence the…
We study the cosmology of axions in the post-inflationary scenario, where random initial conditions and the ensuing string-domain-wall network generate an isocurvature power spectrum. Axions radiated from strings behave as warm, wave-like…