Related papers: The Cosmic Microwave Background Bispectrum and Inf…
We perform a multiparameter likelihood analysis to compare measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra with predictions from models involving cosmic strings. Adding strings to the standard case of a primordial…
We show that next generation Cosmic Microwave Background experiments will be capable of the first ever measurement of the inflaton coupling to other particles, opening a new window to probe the connection between cosmic inflation and…
Inflation elegantly provides initial conditions for the standard model of cosmology, while solving the horizon, flatness, and magnetic monopole problems. Inflationary models make predictions for the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the…
We show how estimates of parameters characterizing inflation-based theories of structure formation localized over the past year when large scale structure (LSS) information from galaxy and cluster surveys was combined with the rapidly…
Probing correlations among short and long-wavelength cosmological fluctuations is known to be decisive for deepening the current understanding of inflation at the microphysical level. Spectral distortions of the CMB can be caused by…
The breakdown of statistical homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic perturbations is a generic feature of ultra large scale structure of the cosmos, in particular, of non trivial cosmic topology. The statistical isotropy (SI) of the Cosmic…
We extend the standard theory of cosmological perturbations to homogeneous but anisotropic universes. We present an exhaustive computation for the case of a Bianchi I model, with a residual isotropy between two spatial dimensions, which is…
We investigate the cosmic variance of the skewness of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in an inflationary model which leads to the baryon isocurvature scenario for the cosmic structure formation. In this model, the baryon…
We investigate a statistical anisotropy on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum, which can be generated from the primordial non-Gaussianity induced by quantum fluctuations of a vector field. We find new configurations in the…
We forecast the ability of cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization datasets to constrain theories of eternal inflation using cosmic bubble collisions. Using the Fisher matrix formalism, we determine both the overall…
We study small field models of inflation, which, against previous expectations, yield significant Gravitational Wave (GW) signal while reproducing other measured observable quantities in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We numerically…
We explore a broad class of three-parameter inflationary models, called the $\Lambda$-inflation, and its observational predictions: high abundance of cosmic gravitational waves consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum of primordial…
It is conjectured that inflation, taking account of quantum gravity, leads to a discrete spectrum of cosmological perturbations, instead of the continuous Gaussian spectrum predicted by standard field theory in an unquantized background.…
We extend an alternative, phenomenological approach to inflation by means of an equation of state and a sound speed, both of them functions of the number of $e$-folds and four phenomenological parameters. This approach captures a number of…
Cosmological inflation is a popular paradigm for understanding Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR); however, it faces many conceptual challenges. An alternative mechanism to inflation for generating an almost scale-invariant…
In light of the most recent cosmological observations, we provide new updated constraints on the slow-roll inflation in different extended scenarios beyond the $\Lambda\rm{CDM}$ cosmological model. Along with the usual six parameters, we…
Primordial magnetic fields lead to non-Gaussian signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) even at the lowest order, as magnetic stresses and the temperature anisotropy they induce depend quadratically on the magnetic field. In…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenge---a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe. I then discuss the motivations…
The BICEP2 collaboration reports a detection of primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode with a tensor-scalar ratio $r=0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ (68% C.L.). However, this result is in tension with the recent Planck limit, $r<0.11$…
Inflation predicts the generation of cosmological perturbations. Usually, the power spectra for the scalar and tensor modes are calculated with help of the slow roll approximation. In the case of power law inflation an exact result is…