Related papers: Who is the Inflaton?
We consider D-term inflation for small couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Standard hybrid inflation then ends at a critical value of the inflaton field that exceeds the Planck mass. During the subsequent waterfall transition the…
Inflation, as currently understood, requires the presence of fields with very flat potentials. Supersymmetric models in which supersymmetry breaking is communicated by supergravity naturally yield such fields, but the scales are typically…
We have studied modulated inflation that generates curvature perturbation from light-field fluctuation. As discussed in previous works, even if the fluctuation of the inflaton itself does not generate the curvature perturbation at the…
We present a unified model where the same scalar field can drive inflation and account for the present dark matter abundance. This scenario is based on the incomplete decay of the inflaton field into right-handed neutrino pairs, which is…
We construct a model of cosmological inflation and perturbation based on the higher-dimensional gauge theory. The inflaton and curvaton are the scalar fields arising from the extra space components of the gauge field living in more than…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…
We study models of inflation where the inflaton corresponds to a flat direction in field space and its mass term is generated by gravity mediated soft supersymmetry breaking at high scale. Assuming the inflaton to have non negligible…
Hybrid inflation is a two field model where inflation ends due to an instability. In the neighborhood of the instability point, the potential is very flat and the quantum fluctuations dominate over the classical motion of the inflaton and…
We consider the mixed inflaton-curvaton scenario in which quantum fluctuations of the curvaton field during inflation lead to a relatively large curvature perturbation spectrum at small scales. We use the model of chaotic inflation with…
The possibility of thermally induced initial density perturbations in inflationary cosmology is examined. The fluctuation dynamics of a scalar field plus thermal bath system during slow roll is described by a Langevin-like equation.…
The cosmological implication of a double inflation model with hybrid + new inflations in supergravity is studied. The hybrid inflation drives an inflaton for new inflation close to the origin through supergravity effects and new inflation…
We study the phenomenology of a realistic version of the chaotic inflationary model, which can be fully and directly explored in particle physics experiments. The inflaton mixes with the Standard Model Higgs boson via the scalar potential,…
We consider chaotic inflation models with a pseudo-scalar field containing the general couplings to the four-form flux. The four-form mixing with the pseudo-scalar field induces a quadratic potential for inflaton while the coexisting…
We consider a Lagrangian of interacting scalar fields. We divide the Lagrangian into two parts. The first part is to describe either the dark matter (DM) or the inflaton (IN) depending on the choice of the self-interaction. The second part…
We analyze the energy density fluctuations contributed by scalar fields $\Phi$ with vanishing expectation values, $\langle\Phi\rangle=0$, which are present in addition to the inflaton field. For simplicity we take $\Phi$ to be…
A recent variant of the inflationary paradigm is that the ``primordial'' curvature perturbations come from quantum fluctuations of a scalar field, subdominant and effectively massless during inflation, called the ``curvaton'', instead of…
We consider the influence of mode - mode coupling in the inflaton field on the spectrum of primordial fluctuations. To this end, we formulate a phenomenological model where the inflaton fluctuations are treated as a fluid undergoing…
Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes…
We consider cosmological scenarios in which density perturbations are generated by the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field at early times; the late time dynamics involves a modulus which first dominates the energy density of the…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…