Related papers: MSSM flat direction as a curvaton
We consider a novel cosmological scenario in which a curvaton is long-lived and plays the role of cold dark matter (CDM) in the presence of a short, secondary inflation. Non-trivial evolution of the large scale cosmological perturbation in…
We consider the possibility that the primordial curvature perturbation was generated through the curvaton mechanism from a scalar field with an electric charge, or precisely the Standard Model U(1) weak hypercharge. This links the dynamics…
We consider a curvaton scenario in which the late-time domination and the generation of the curvature perturbation is achieved by a non-oscillatory (NO) curvaton potential. Instead of considering the conventional curvaton oscillation, we…
In the standard inflationary paradigm, cosmological density perturbations are generated as quantum fluctuations in the early Universe, but then undergo a quantum-to-classical transition. A key role in this transition is played by squeezing…
We consider a possibility that one of the flat directions in the minimal supersymmetric standard model plays the role of the inflaton field and realizes large-field inflation. This is achieved by introducing a generalized shift symmetry on…
The primordial inflation dilutes all matter except the quantum fluctuations which we see in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Therefore the last phases of inflation must be embedded within a beyond the Standard Model (SM)…
The scalar potential of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is nearly flat along many directions in field space. We provide a catalog of the flat directions of the renormalizable and supersymmetry-preserving part of the scalar…
The tensor fraction $r\simeq 0.16$ found by BICEP2 corresponds to a Hubble parameter $H\simeq 1.0\times 10^{14}\GeV$ during inflation. This has two implications for the (single-field) slow-roll inflation hypothesis. First, the inflaton…
If an adiabatic density perturbation is responsible for large scale structure and the cmb anisotropy, its spectral index $n$ will be measured in the forseeable future with an accuracy $\Delta n\sim .01$. This is precisely the kind of…
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 the power spectrum of the mass density perturbations in an inflation scenario that includes thermal dissipation. We show that the condition on which the thermal fluctuations dominate the primordial density perturbations can easily…
In quintessential inflationary model, the same master field that drives inflation becomes, later on, the dynamical source of the (present) accelerated expansion. Quintessential inflationary models require a curvature scale at the end of…
We consider the possibility of suppressing superhorizon curvature perturbations after the end of the ordinary slow-roll inflationary stage. This is the opposite of the curvaton limit. We assume that large curvature perturbations are created…
One interpretation of proton stability is the existence of extra-flat directions of the MSSM, in particular $u^{c}u^{c}d^{c}e^{c}$ and $QQQL$, where the operators lifting the potential are suppressed by a mass scale $\Lambda$ which is much…
Motivated by a recent discussion about the role of flat directions, a typical feature of supersymmetric models, in the process of particle production in the early universe a consistent model of inflation and preheating in supergravity with…
We consider the possible decay of the inflaton into curvaton particles during reheating and analyse its effect on curvaton scenarios. Typical decay curvatons are initially relativistic then become non-relativistic, changing the background…
In slow roll inflation, the running of the spectral tilt is generically proportional to the square of the deviation from scale invariance, $\alpha_s \propto (n_s-1)^2$, and it is therefore currently undetectable. We present a mechanism able…
Precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background by WMAP are believed to have established a flat $\Lambda$-dominated universe, seeded by nearly scale-invariant adiabatic primordial fluctuations. However by relaxing the hypothesis…
Baryogenesis from the coherent production of a scalar condensate along a flat direction of the supersymmetric extension of the standard model (Affleck-Dine mechanism) is investigated. Two important effects are emphasized. First,…
We constrain two non-flat time-evolving dark energy cosmological models by using Hubble parameter data, Type Ia supernova apparent magnitude measurements, and baryonic acoustic oscillation peak length scale observations. The inclusion of…