Related papers: Quantum Inflation?
Inflation in the early Universe is one of the most promising probes of gravity in the high-energy regime. However, observable scales give access to a limited window in the inflationary dynamics. In this essay, we argue that quantum…
Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential. For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
Inflation is often described through the dynamics of a scalar field, slow-rolling in a suitable potential. Ultimately, this inflaton must be identified as the expectation value of a quantum field, evolving in a quantum effective potential.…
We perform a semi-classical analysis of the Emergent Universe scenario for inflation. Fixing the background, and taking the inflaton to be homogenous, we cast the inflaton's evolution as a one-dimensional quantum mechanics problem. We find…
We compute the primordial scalar, vector and tensor metric perturbations arising from quantum field inflation. Quantum field inflation takes into account the nonperturbative quantum dynamics of the inflaton consistently coupled to the…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
A semiclassical description of quantum systems is applied to probe the dynamics of the cosmological model of an inflationary universe with quadratic inflaton potential, described in a quantum framework of geometrodynamics. The systematic…
We compute the primordial scalar, vector and tensor metric perturbations arising from quantum field inflation. Quantum field inflation takes into account the nonperturbative quantum dynamics of the inflaton consistently coupled to the…
The Higgs field is an attractive candidate for the inflaton because it is an observationally confirmed fundamental scalar field. Importantly, it can be modeled by the most general renormalizable scalar potential. However, if the classical…
In the ``natural inflation'' model, the inflaton potential is periodic. We show that Planck scale physics may induce corrections to the inflaton potential, which is also periodic with a greater frequency. Such high frequency corrections…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
Informed by a quantum information perspective, we interpret cosmological expansion of space as growing entanglement between underlying degrees of freedom. In particular, we focus on inflationary cosmology, which, while being a successful…
I consider a quantum system that possesses key features of quantum shape dynamics and show that the evolution of wave-packets will become increasingly classical at late times and tend to evolve more and more like an expanding classical…
Inflation is most often described using quantum field theory (QFT) on a fixed, curved spacetime background. Such a description is valid only if the spatial volume of the region considered is so large that its size and shape moduli behave…
A self-consistent pre-inflationary extension of the inflationary scenario with the Starobinsky potential, favored by Planck data, is studied using techniques from loop quantum cosmology (LQC). The results are compared with the quadratic…
Cosmic inflation is commonly assumed to be driven by quantum fields. Quantum mechanics predicts phenomena such as quantum fluctuations and tunneling of the field. Here we show an example of a quantum interference effect which goes beyond…
We study quantum corrections to an inflationary model, which has the attractive feature of being classically scale-invariant. In this model, quadratic gravity plays along a scalar field in such a way that inflation begins near the unstable…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…