Related papers: The Inflaton and Time in the Matter-Gravity System
If cosmic inflation was driven by an electrically neutral scalar field stable on cosmological time scales, the field necessarily constitutes all or part of dark matter (DM). We study this possibility in a scenario where the inflaton field…
We study inflation driven by a slow-rolling inflaton field, characterised by a quadratic potential, and incorporating radiative corrections within the context of supergravity. In this model the energy scale of inflation is not overly…
The evolution of the quintessence field during a phase of chaotic inflation is studied. The inflaton and the quintesssence field are described in a supergravity framework where the coupling between the inflaton and quintessence is induced…
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 coupling between a pseudo-scalar inflaton and a gauge field leads to an amount of additional density perturbations and gravitational waves (GWs) that is strongly sensitive to the inflaton speed. This naturally results in enhanced GWs at…
Explosive particle production due to parametric resonance is a crucial feature of reheating in inflationary cosmology. Coherent oscillations of the inflaton field act as a periodically varying mass in the evolution equation for matter…
In this work, we investigate the possibility of generating an inflationary mechanism within the framework of a metric-$f(R)$ modified gravity theory, formulated in the Jordan frame. We explore whether the scalar field, non-minimally coupled…
A compelling way to address the inflationary period is via the warm inflation scenario, where the interaction of the inflaton field with other degrees of freedom affects its dynamics in such a way that slow-roll inflation is maintained by…
The early Universe may have passed through an extended period of matter-dominated expansion following inflation and prior to the onset of radiation domination. Sub-horizon density perturbations grow gravitationally during such an epoch,…
We perform a semi-classical analysis of the Emergent Universe scenario for inflation. Fixing the background, and taking the inflaton to be homogenous, we cast the inflaton's evolution as a one-dimensional quantum mechanics problem. We find…
A generic prediction of the Coleman-Weinberg inflation is the existence of a heavy particle sector whose interactions with the inflaton, the lightest state in this sector, generate the inflaton potential at loop level. For typical…
Quantum gravity, as a fundamental theory of space-time, is expected to reveal how the universe may have started, perhaps during or before an inflationary epoch. It may then leave a potentially observable (but probably minuscule) trace in…
By using the thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes and Einstein general relativity, a cosmological model is proposed where the early universe is considered as a mixture of a scalar field with a matter field. The scalar field refers…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…
The curvaton scenario for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represents an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario of inflation in which the observed density perturbations are due to…
Inflation is a highly favoured theory for the early Universe. It is compatible with current observations of the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure and is a driver in the quest to detect primordial gravitational waves. It…
We discuss the phenomenology of the minimal inflation scenario. We concentrate on two aspects: inflationary trajectories and particle production. Our findings can be summarized in two main results: first, that inflationary trayectories that…
We study the possibility that particle production during inflation could source observable gravity waves on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. A crucial constraint on such scenarios arises because particle…
In the context of inflationary models with a pre-inflationary stage, in which the Einstein equations are obeyed, the weak energy condition is satisfied, and spacetime topology is trivial, we argue that homogeneity on super-Hubble scales…
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…