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Cosmic inflation provides a compelling framework for explaining several observed features of our Universe, but its viability depends on an efficient reheating phase that converts the inflaton's energy into Standard Model particles. This…
I demonstrate that instability in a system of homogeneous scalar fields leads to the growth of super-Hubble metric perturbations. This generalizes the result that parametric resonance can lead to the growth of cosmological perturbations.…
A precise interpretation of the Universe wave function is forbidden in the spirit of the Copenhagen School since a precise notion of measure operation cannot be satisfactorily defined. Here we propose a Bohmian interpretation of the…
Light scalar fields acquire isocurvature fluctuations during inflation. While these fluctuations could lead to interesting observable signatures at small scales, they are strongly constrained on large scales by cosmic microwave background…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
We show how the quantum to classical transition of the cosmological fluctuations produced during inflation can be described by means of the influence functional and the master equation. We split the inflaton field into the system-field…
We study the quantum backreaction from inflationary fluctuations of a very light, non-minimally coupled spectator scalar and show that it is a viable candiate for dark energy. The problem is solved by suitably adapting the formalism of…
These lectures cover the basics of inflationary models for the early universe, concentrating particularly on the generation of density fluctuations from scalar-field dynamics. The subsequent gravitational dynamics of these fluctuations in…
We consider the non-commutative inflation model of [3] in which it is the unconventional dispersion relation for regular radiation which drives the accelerated expansion of space. In this model, we study the evolution of linear cosmological…
We study the process whereby quantum cosmological perturbations become classical within inflationary cosmology. By setting up a master-equation formulation we show how quantum coherence for super-Hubble modes can be destroyed by their…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
The behavior of the quintessence field is studied during inflation. In order to have a satisfactory model of dark energy, the quintessence field value today should be as insensible to the initial conditions as possible. Usually, only the…
The presence of cosmological perturbations affects the background metric and matter configuration in which the perturbations propagate. This effect, studied a long time ago for gravitational waves, also is operational for scalar…
Following inflation, the Universe may pass through an early matter-dominated phase supported by the oscillating inflaton condensate. Initially small fluctuations in the condensate grow gravitationally on subhorizon scales and can collapse…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
We investigate the inhomogeneous inflation, in which the space exponentially expands with inhomogeneities, and its cosmological perturbations. The inhomogeneous inflation is realized by introducing scalar fields with spacelike gradients…
In this article we extend a study of the validity conditions of the separate-universe approach of cosmological perturbations to models of inflation with multiple fields. The separate-universe approach consists in describing the universe as…
We examine stochastic temperature fluctuations of the cosmic background radiation (CBR) arising via the Sachs-Wolfe effect from gravitational wave perturbations produced in the early universe. These temperature fluctuations are described by…
Heavy scalar fields can undergo an instability during inflation as a result of their kinetic couplings with the inflaton. This is known as the geometrical destabilization of inflation, as it relies on the effect of the negative curvature of…
We compute the rate with which super-Hubble cosmological fluctuations are decohered during inflation, by their gravitational interactions with unobserved shorter-wavelength scalar and tensor modes. We do so using Open Effective Field Theory…