Related papers: Is Warm Inflation Possible?
The prototype hybrid SUSY SU(5) inflation models, while well motivated from particle physics, and while allowing an acceptable inflationary phase with little or no fine tuning, are shown to have two fundamental phenomenological problems.…
A second-order expansion for the quantum fluctuations of the matter field was considered in the framework of the warm inflation scenario. The friction and Hubble parameters were expended by means of a semiclassical approach. The…
We consider the spectrum of primordial fluctuations produced by inflationary models where the inflaton potential is the sum of two exponential terms. A wide range of spectra result, with the only constraint being that the scalar spectrum…
Variants of the $A$-term model of hep-ph/0605035 are considered. They are equally successful, indicating that the model is quite robust once the relation between $A$ and the soft mass is regarded as tunable. Alternatively a flat direction…
If inflation can occur only at the energy density V much smaller than the Planck density, which is the case for many inflationary models based on string theory, then the probability of quantum creation of a closed or an infinitely large…
In the standard cosmological picture the Universe underwent a brief period of near-exponential expansion, known as Inflation. This provides an explanation for structure formation through the amplification of perturbations by the rapid…
Inflation is well known to be difficult in the context of supergravity, if the potential is dominated by the $F$ term. Non-renormalizable terms generically give $|V''|\sim V/M^2$, where $V(\phi)$ is the inflaton potential and $M$ is the…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
We investigate, in a model-independent way, the conditions required to obtain a satisfactory model of extended inflation in which inflation is brought to an end by a first-order phase transition. The constraints are that the correct present…
It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the…
Warm inflation scenarios are studied with the dissipative coefficient computed in the equilibrium approximation. Use is made of the analytical expressions available in the low temperature regime with focus on the possibility of achieving…
Most models of inflation have small parameters, either to guarantee sufficient inflation or the correct magnitude of the density perturbations. In this paper we show that, in supersymmetric theories with weak scale supersymmetry breaking,…
A class of inflationary models with the nonminimal coupling term `K(phi)R' is considered. We show that the successful inflation can take place if the ratio between the square of the nonminimal coupling term and the potential for the scalar…
We discuss thermalization through perturbative inflaton decay at the end of inflation. We find that a thermal plasma should form well before all inflatons have decayed, unless all gauge symmetries are badly broken during that epoch.…
We argue that $\Lambda$-driven inflation must overshoot into an era of deflation. The deflationary period ends quickly with the creation of a hot dense thermal barrier to the forward propagation of quantum correlations from the period of…
We discuss the damping of tensor modes due to anisotropic stress in inflation. The effect is negligible in standard inflation and may be significantly large in inflation models that involve drastic production of free-streaming particles.
The parameter space for A-term inflation is explored with $W=\lambda_p \phi^p/(p M_P^{p-3})$. With p=6 and \lambda_p~1, the observed spectrum and spectral tilt can be obtained with soft mass of order 10^2 GeV but not with a much higher…
A new family of inflationary models is introduced and analysed. The behaviour of the parameters characterising the models suggest preferred values, which generate the most interesting testable predictions. Results are further improved if…
Because the scale of inflation is conformal frame dependent, in order to fully characterize it one should quote its value in terms of all the independent equal-time dimensionless ratios in the theory. We argue that when couplings depend on…
Extra-natural inflation is (de)constructed. Explicit models are compared with cosmological observations. The models successfully achieve trans-Planckian inflaton field excursions.