Related papers: Inflation model building in moduli space
The upcoming satellite missions MAP and Planck will measure the spectrum of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background with unprecedented accuracy. We discuss the prospect of using these observations to distinguish among proposed…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
We briefly discuss constraints on supersymmetric hybrid inflation models and examine the consistency of brane inflation models. We then address the implications for inflationary scenarios resulting from the strong constraints on the cosmic…
The primordial four-point function encodes a wealth of information about the inflationary Universe. Despite extensive theoretical work, most models of four-point physics have never been compared to data. In this series, we conduct a…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
We analyze a class of generalized inflationary models proposed in Ref. [1], known as $\beta$-exponential inflation. We show that this kind of potential can arise in the context of brane cosmology, where the field describing the size of the…
Recent observations opened up a new window on the inflationary model building. As it was firstly reported by the WMAP data, there may be some indications of statistical anisotropy on the CMB map, although the statistical significance of…
Various issues concerning the impact of inflationary models on parameter estimation from the cosmic microwave background are reviewed, with particular focus on the range of possible outcomes of inflationary models and on the amount which…
In this brief review we will discuss how a well motivated particle theory beyond the eletroweak Standard Model provides ingredients and conditions for a successful inflation. We will mainly focus on a low energy supersymmetric Standard…
Inflationary cosmology proposes that the early Universe undergoes accelerated expansion, driven, in simple scenarios, by a single scalar field, or inflaton. The form of the inflaton potential determines the initial spectra of density…
In this dissertation, we introduce a general way of modeling inflation in a framework that is independent of the exact nature of the inflationary potential. Because of the choice of our initial conditions and the continuity of the scale…
We review the constraints that the recently released Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Planck data put on inflation and we argue that single field slow-roll inflationary scenarios (with minimal kinetic term) are favored. Then, within this…
In inflationary cosmology, cosmic reheating after inflation sets the initial conditions for the hot big bang. We investigate how CMB data can be used to study the effective potential and couplings of the inflaton during reheating and…
The recent measurements of the power spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies are consistent with the simplest inflationary scenario and big bang nucleosynthesis constraints. However, these results rely on the assumption of a…
Cosmologists have developed a phenomenally successful picture of structure in the universe based on the idea that the universe expanded exponentially in its earliest moments. There are three pieces of evidence for this exponential expansion…
During inflation, spacetime is approximately described by de Sitter space which is conformally invariant with the symmetry group SO(1,4). This symmetry can significantly constrain the quantum perturbations which arise in the inflationary…
An interacting scalar field with largish coupling to curvature can support a distinctive inflationary universe scenario. Previously this has been discussed for the Standard Model Higgs field, treated classically or in a leading log…
Perturbations from inflation evolve into large scale structure of the late universe, and encode abundant cosmic structure formation physics. We allow freedom in the primordial power spectrum, rather than assuming a power law scale…
Many models of supersymmetry breaking involve particles with weak scale mass and Planck mass suppressed couplings. Coherent production of such particles in the early universe destroys the successful predictions of nucleosynthesis. We show…
There is strong evidence from cosmological data that the universe underwent an epoch of superluminal expansion called inflation. A satisfactory embedding of inflation in fundamental physics has been an outstanding problem at the interface…