Related papers: The dark(er) side of inflation
After decades of successful hot big-bang paradigm, Cosmology still lacks a framework in which the early inflationary phase of the universe smoothly matches the radiation epoch and evolves to the present `quasi' de Sitter spacetime. No less…
We develop general criteria to construct unified frameworks for inflation and quintessence which employ a unique scalar field to drive both. By using such a minimal theoretical framework we avoid having to fine-tune couplings and…
Primordial inflation and Dark Matter (DM) could both belong to the hidden sector. It is therefore plausible that the inflaton, which drives inflation, could couple to the DM either directly or indirectly, thus providing a common origin for…
We discuss the possibility that dark energy arises from a strongly-coupled Higgs-Yang-Mills set of interacting fields in the non-perturbative regime. We choose the simplest $SU(2)$ representation, which is compatible with the Cosmological…
Standard cosmology poses a number of important questions. Apart from its singular origin, it possesses early and late accelerating phases required to account for observations. The vacuum energy has been considered as a possible way to…
We consider an inflection point inflationary model in supergravity with a single chiral superfield and show that the predicted values of the scalar spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio are consistent with the Planck 2015 results. In…
We review the recent attempts of unifying inflation with quintessence. It appears natural to join the two ends in the framework of brane world cosmology. The models of quintessential inflation belong to the class of {\it non-oscillatory}…
We study a model of inflation with multiple pseudo-scalar fields coupled to a $U(1)$ gauge field through Chern-Simons interactions. Because of parity violating interactions, one polarization of the gauge field is amplified yielding to…
The single scalar field inflationary models that lead to scalar and tensor perturbation spectra with amplitudes varying in direct proportion to one another are reconstructed by solving the Stewart-Lyth inverse problem to next-to-leading…
A Friedman cosmology is investigated based on scalar-tensor gravitation with general metric coupling and scalar potential functions. We show that for a broad class of such functions, the scalar field can be dynamically trapped using a…
We study the behavior of large-scale (cosmological) modes of back-reaction effects during inflation. We find that the group of modes which describes the very large-scale fluctuations of energy density during inflation due to back-reaction…
This review considers the theoretical approaches to the understanding of dark energy which comprises approximately 68\% of the energy of our Universe and explains an acceleration in its expansion. Following a discussion of the main approach…
How well can we constrain the initial quantum state of metric perturbations sourced during inflation? We exhibit an interesting new class of quantum states that entangle the scalar metric perturbations {\zeta} with other fields such as…
The two most popular candidates for dark energy, i.e. a cosmological constant and quintessence, are very difficult to distinguish observationally, mostly because the quintessence field does not have sizable fluctuations. We study a scalar…
The dynamics of a universe dominated by a self-interacting nonminimally coupled scalar field are considered. The structure of the phase space and complete phase portraits are given. New dynamical behaviors include superinflation…
Thermal inflation, a brief low energy inflation after the primordial inflation, resolves the moduli problem in the context of supersymmetric cosmology. In the thermal inflation scenario, the primordial power spectrum is modestly redshifted…
We consider a model where both dark energy and dark matter originate from the coupling of a scalar field with a non-conventional kinetic term to, both, a metric measure and a non-metric measure. An interacting dark energy/dark matter…
There might be a light scalar field during inflation which is not responsible for the accelerating inflationary expansion. Then, its quantum fluctuation is stretched during inflation. This scalar field could be a curvaton, if it decays at a…
A radiative seesaw model with an inert doublet dark matter is a promising candidate which could explain the existence of neutrino masses, dark matter and baryon number asymmetry of the Universe, simultaneously. In addition to these issues,…
We present a mechanism for the emergence of cosmic acceleration within the mean-field approximation of Group Field Theory models of quantum gravity. Depending on the interaction type, the resulting cosmological dynamics can either feature a…