Related papers: Inflaton Fragmentation After lambda phi^4 Inflatio…
We study, analytically and with lattice simulations, the decay of coherent field oscillations and the subsequent thermalization of the resulting stochastic classical wave-field. The problem of reheating of the Universe after inflation…
I present a model for inflation based on the gaugino-dilaton dynamics of supersymmetry breaking. The inflaton is the dimension--1 scalar field $\phi$ related to the gaugino condensate via $\lambda^T\lambda=\phi^3.$ Recent work in this area…
We present a nonlinear study of the inflationary epoch based on numerical lattice simulations. Lattice simulations are a well-known tool in primordial cosmology, and they have been extensively used to study the reheating epoch after…
We present a new general mechanism for generating curvature perturbations after inflation. Our model is based on the simple assumption that a field that starts to oscillate after inflation has a potential characterized by an underlying…
We examine the spectrum of inflaton fluctuations resulting from any given long period of exponential inflation. Infrared and ultraviolet divergences in the inflaton dispersion summed over all modes do not appear in our approach. We show how…
We explore a new possibility that some inflaton fields in multi-field inflation models satisfy the observed value of the spectral index so that the curvature perturbation generated by them through post-inflationary dynamics may be relevant…
The amplitude of primordial curvature perturbations is enhanced when a radiation bath at a temperature T>H is sustained during inflation by dissipative particle production, which is particularly significant when a non-trivial statistical…
We study the presence of chaotic behavior in phase space in the pre-inflationary stage of hybrid inflation models. This is closely related to the problem of initial conditions associated to these inflationary type of models. We then show…
We consider the formation of topological defects after inflation. In order to take into account the effects of the rescattering of fluctuations, we integrate the classical equation that describes the evolution of a complex scalar field on…
The curvaton and the inhomogeneous reheating scenarios for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represent an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario where the observed density perturbations are…
We show that the inflaton condensate associated with a global symmetry can fragment into quasi stable Q balls after the end of inflation, provided the inflaton oscillations give rise to an effective equation of state with negative pressure.…
We study preheating in models where a scalar inflaton is directly coupled to a non-Abelian $SU(2)$ gauge field. In particular, we examine $m^2 \phi^2$ inflation with a conformal, dilaton-like coupling to the non-Abelian sector. We describe…
It is assumed that during inflation, all energy was contained in a slow-rolling inflaton field $\phi$. The particles constituting the Universe are created due to interactions with the field $\phi$ coherently oscillating after inflation. The…
We present two- and three-dimensional simulations of the growth of quantum fluctuations of the scalar fields in supersymmetric hybrid inflation models. For a natural range of couplings, sub-horizon quantum fluctuations undergo rapid growth…
We study the nonlinear stage of preheating in a model consisting of a single inflaton field $\phi$ nonminimally coupled to the spacetime curvature and considering a self-coupling quartic potential V ($\phi$) = $\lambda \phi^4/4$. As the…
We study Quadratic Inflation with the inflaton field $\phi$ coupled non-minimally to the curvature scalar $R$, so that the potential during inflation is of the form $V\propto m^2\phi^2+\xi R\phi^2$. We show that with a suitable choice of…
We show that the primordial curvature perturbations may originate not from the quantum fluctuations of inflaton during inflation but from isocurvature perturbations which are amplified during preheating after inflation. We consider a simple…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…
We review the theory of inflation with single and multiple fields paying particular attention to the dynamics of adiabatic and entropy/isocurvature perturbations which provide the primary means of testing inflationary models. We review the…
If the inflaton and the quintessence fields are identified, the background geometry evolves through a stiff epoch undershooting the expansion rate of a radiation-dominated plasma. For some classes of inflationary potentials this scenario is…