Related papers: Who is the Inflaton?

If you fall into a real astronomical black hole (choosing a supermassive black hole, to make sure that the tidal forces don't get you first), then you will probably meet your fate not at a central singularity, but rather in the…

An energetic justification of a thermal component during inflation is given. The thermal component can act as a heat reservoir which induces thermal fluctuations on the inflaton field system. We showed previously that such thermal…

Quantum and thermal fluctuations of an irrotational fluid are studied across the transition regime connecting a protoinflationary phase of decelerated expansion to an accelerated epoch driven by a single inflaton field. The…

Vacuum fluctuations in the inflaton field driving chaotic inflation with a quadratic potential give a red spectrum of primordial density perturbations, n=0.97. However angular fluctuations in an O(N)-symmetric quadratic potential have a…

We present a scenario where an axion-like field drives inflation until a potential barrier, which keeps a waterfall field at the origin, disappears and a waterfall transition occurs. Such a barrier separates the scale of inflation from that…

We examine an intriguing possibility that a single field is responsible for both inflation and dark matter, focussing on the minimal set-up where inflation is driven by a scalar coupling to curvature. We study in detail the reheating…

An inflation model based on dimensional (de)construction of a massive gauge theory is proposed. The inflaton in this model is the "zero-mode" of a component of the massive gauge field in the (de)constructed extra dimensions. The inflaton…

We construct a chaotic inflation model in which the Higgs fields play the role of the inflaton in the standard model as well as in the singlet extension of the supersymmetric standard model. The key idea is to allow a non-canonical kinetic…

High-scale string inflationary models are in well-known tension with low-energy supersymmetry. A promising solution involves models where the inflaton is the volume of the extra dimensions so that the gravitino mass relaxes from large…

In a recent work, we demonstrated that a modified gravity model in which a scalar "darkon" field is coupled to both the standard Riemannian metric and to another non-Riemannian volume form is compatible with observational data from…

In inflationary cosmological models driven by an inflaton field the origin of the primordial inhomogeneities which are responsible for large scale structure formation are the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field. These are usually…

We show that the decay of the inflaton field may be incomplete, while nevertheless successfully reheating the universe and leaving a stable remnant that accounts for the present dark matter abundance. We note, in particular, that since the…

Inflation universally produces classical almost scale free Gaussian inhomogeneities of any light scalars. Assuming the coupling constants at the time of inflation depend on some light moduli fields, we encounter the generation of modulated…

Using numerical solutions of the full Einstein field equations coupled to a scalar inflaton field in 3+1 dimensions, we study the conditions under which a universe that is initially expanding, highly inhomogeneous and dominated by gradient…

We discuss inflation and dark matter in the inert doublet model coupled non-minimally to gravity where the inert doublet is the inflaton and the neutral scalar part of the doublet is the dark matter candidate. We calculate the various…

We demonstrate the existence of chaos in realistic models of two-field inflation. The chaotic motion takes place after the end of inflation, when the fields are free to oscillate and their motion is only lightly damped by the expansion of…

We consider the quasi-de Sitter geometry of the inflationary universe. We calculate the energy flux of the slowly rolling background scalar field through the quasi-de Sitter apparent horizon and set it equal to the change of the entropy…

In order to draw out the essential behavior of the universe, investigations of early universe cosmology often reduce the complex system to a simple integrable system. Inflationary models are of this kind as they focus on simple scalar field…

The inflaton field is assumed to possess electric charge. The effect of the charge upon inflation is studied using a parameter \omega_0 that acts as a measure of the quantity of inflaton present. It is shown that at the end of inflation the…

Effects caused by an additional massive scalar field interacting with an inflaton field are analyzed. Inflation is shown to have two stages, the first of which is dominant and characterized by ultraslow dynamics of the inflaton field.…