Related papers: Hilltop Inflation
The fluctuations in the inflaton field at the end of inflation which seed the density perturbations are prepared in a pure quantum state. It is generally assumed that some physics causes this pure state to decohere so that it should be…
An outgrowth of the idea of inflation is advanced. In the inflation regime, the singularity condition is broken. Equations which govern inflation are invariant under time reversal, so that they describe deflation as well. Those two…
Hybrid inflation, driven by a Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) D term, is an intriguing inflationary model. In its usual formulation, it however suffers from several shortcomings. These pertain to the origin of the FI mass scale, the stability of…
We show that a large class of modified gravity theories (MOG) with the Jordan-frame Lagrangian $f(R)$ translate into scalar-field (scalaron) models with hilltop potentials in the Einstein frame. (A rare exception to this rule is provided by…
We consider D-term inflation for small couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Standard hybrid inflation then ends at a critical value of the inflaton field that exceeds the Planck mass. During the subsequent waterfall transition the…
A wide variety of vacua, and their cosmological realization, may provide an explanation for the apparently anthropic choices of some parameters of particle physics and cosmology. If the probability on various parameters is weighted by…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
We propose a variant of hybrid inflation which is applicable in a wide class of supersymmetric grand unified models. The observed temperature perturbations of cosmic background radiation can be reproduced with natural values of the…
We examine the class of initial conditions which give rise to inflation. Our analysis is carried out for several popular models including: Higgs inflation, Starobinsky inflation, chaotic inflation, axion monodromy inflation and…
We propose a new inflation model in which a gauge singlet inflaton turns into the Higgs condensate after inflation. The inflationary path is characterized by a moduli space of supersymmetric vacua spanned by the inflaton and Higgs field.…
A simple extension of the minimal left-right symmetric supersymmetric grand unified theory model is constructed by adding two pairs of superfields. This naturally violates the partial Yukawa unification predicted by the minimal model. After…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
We investigate a topological inflation model in supergravity. By means of numerical simulations, it is confirmed that topological inflation can take place in supergravity. We also show that the condition for successful inflation depends not…
Recently in hep-ph/0605035 and hep-ph/0608138, we have shown that primordial inflation can be embedded within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, while providing the right amplitude for the density perturbations and a tilted spectrum…
We apply the holographic principle during the inflationary stage of our universe. Where necessary, we illustrate the analysis in the case of new and extended inflation which, together, typify generic models of inflation. We find that in the…
Scalar field models of inflation based on a large nonminimal coupling to gravity xi, in particular, Higgs inflation, may violate unitarity at an energy scale ~ M_p / xi << M_p. In this case the model is incomplete at energy scales relevant…
We revisit models of natural inflation and show that the single-field effective theory described by the potential $V(a)\sim \cos\frac{a}{f}$ breaks down as the inflaton $a$ makes large-field excursions, even for values of $f$ smaller than…
We investigate the parameter space of hybrid inflation models where inflation terminates via a first-order phase transition causing nucleation of bubbles. Such models experience a tension from the need to ensure nearly scale invariant…
In the hope of avoiding model dependence of the cosmological observables, phenomenological parametrizations of Cosmic Inflation have recently been proposed. Typically, they are expressed in terms of two parameters associated with an…
This paper is a major revision of our previous work on the HST model of inflation. We identify the local fluctuations of the metric with fluctuations of the mass and angular momentum of black holes, and show that the consistency conditions…