Related papers: Inflation and the Fine-Tuning Problem

We show how importance sampling can be used to reconstruct the statistics of rare cosmological fluctuations in stochastic inflation. We have developed a publicly available package, PyFPT, that solves the first-passage time problem of…

We present a review on the state-of-the-art of the mathematical framework known as stochastic inflation, paying special attention to its derivation and giving references for the readers interested on results coming from the application of…

The simplest inflationary model $V=\frac12 m^2\phi^2$ represents the benchmark for future constraints. For a quadratic potential, the quantity $(n_s-1)+r/4+11 (n_s-1)^2/24$ vanishes (up to corrections which are cubic in slow roll) and can…

We simulate the distribution of very rare, large excursions in the primordial density field produced in models of inflation in the very early universe which include a strong enhancement of the power spectrum. The stochastic $\delta…

The statistics of primordial curvature fluctuations are our window into the period of inflation, where these fluctuations were generated. To date, the cosmic microwave background has been the dominant source of information about these…

For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…

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…

A special class of conformal gravity theories is proposed to solve the long standing problem of the fine-tuned cosmological constant. In the proposed model time evolution of the inflaton field leaves behind a nearly vanishing, but finite…

We describe the general inflationary dynamics that can arise with a single, canonically coupled field where the inflaton potential is a 4-th order polynomial. This scenario yields a wide range of combinations of the empirical spectral…

While moving down the potential on its classical slow roll trajectory, the inflaton field is subject to quantum jumps, which take it up or down the potential at random. In "stochastic inflation", the impact of these quantum jumps is modeled…

Recently, Cormier and Holman pointed out that fluctuations of an inflaton field $\phi$ are significantly enhanced in the model of {\it spinodal inflation} with a potential $V(\phi)$ for which the second derivative $V^{(2)}(\phi)$ changes…

Non-trivial inflaton self-interactions can yield calculable signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity that are measurable in cosmic surveys. Surprisingly, we find that the phase transition to slow-roll eternal inflation is often incalculable…

We identify the effective theory describing inflationary super-Hubble scales and show it to be a special case of effective field theories appropriate to open systems. Open systems allow information to be exchanged between the degrees of…

If the inflaton potential has multiple minima, as may be expected in, e.g., the string theory "landscape", inflation predicts a probability distribution for the cosmological parameters describing spatial curvature (Omega_tot), dark energy…

We study the stochastic formalism of inflation beyond the usual slow-roll approximation. We verify that the assumptions on which the stochastic formalism relies still hold even far from the slow-roll attractor. This includes demonstrating…

The perturbative approach to stochastic inflation is used to determine the spectrum of density fluctuations and gravitational waves due to the coarse grained field. The amplitude of the curvature fluctuation spectrum, the spectral index and…

We explore the ability of experimental physics to uncover the underlying structure of the gravitational Lagrangian describing inflation. While the observable degeneracy of the inflationary parameter space is large, future measurements of…

We re-examine large scalar fields within effective field theory, in particular focussing on the issues raised by their use in inflationary models (as suggested by BICEP2 to obtain primordial tensor modes). We argue that when the large-field…

In the "stochastic $\delta N$ formalism", the statistics of the inflationary density perturbation are obtained from the first passage distribution of a stochastic process. We develop a general framework in which to evaluate the rare tail of…

We study in detail a new model of quintessential inflation where the inflaton field is coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet term. This coupling ensures that the variation of the field is kept sub-Planckian, which avoids the 5th force problem as well…