Related papers: Spinodal Inflation
Usually inflation ends either by a slow rolling of the inflaton field, which gradually becomes faster and faster, or by a first-order phase transition. We describe a model where inflation ends in a different way, due to a very rapid rolling…
We revisit two-field hybrid inflation as an effective field theory for low-scale inflation with sub-Planckian scalar field ranges. We focus on a prototype model by Stewart because it allows for a red spectral tilt, which still fits the…
Coupled, multi-field models of inflation can provide several attractive features unavailable in the case of a single inflaton field. These models have a rich dynamical structure resulting from the interaction of the fields and their…
We consider an O(N) model coupled self-consistently to gravity in the semiclassical approximation, where the field is subject to `new inflation' type initial conditions. We study the dynamics self-consistently and non-perturbatively with…
The observational signatures of multi-field inflation will generally evolve as the Universe reheats. We introduce a general analytic formalism for tracking this evolution through perturbative reheating, applicable to two field models with…
While moving down the potential on its classical slow roll trajectory, the inflaton field is subject to quantum jumps, which take it up or down the potential at random. In "stochastic inflation", the impact of these quantum jumps is modeled…
We investigate inflation driven by the evolution of highly excited quantum states within the framework of out of equilibrium field dynamics. The self-consistent evolution of these quantum states and the scale factor is studied analytically…
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…
We show that simple strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories with quantum moduli spaces can naturally lead to hybrid inflation. These theories contain no input dimensionful or small parameters. The effective superpotential is linear…
We investigate how long wavelength inflationary fluctuations can cause the background field to deviate from classical dynamics. For generic potentials, we show that, in the Hartree approximation, the long wavelength dynamics can be…
The evolution of a scalar field is explored taking into account the presence of a background fluid in a positively curved Universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Though the mechanism that provides the initial conditions for…
Inflation is terminated by a non-equilibrium process which finally leads to a thermal state. We study the onset of this transition in a class of hybrid inflation models. The exponential growth of tachyonic modes leads to decoherence and…
A new class of gravity-matter model defined with an independent non-Riemannian volume form is studied, in the second order formalism. The action has a global scale invariance symmetry, which can be broken by the equation of motion of the…
During inflation explicit perturbative computations of quantum field theories which contain massless, non-conformal fields exhibit secular effects that grow as powers of the logarithm of the inflationary scale factor. Starobinskii's…
We investigate the quantum fluctuations of an inflaton field in a two-field model of one-bubble open inflation. One of the inflatons is assumed to be responsible for the first false vacuum stage of inflation and the other is assumed to be…
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…
A new model of inflation is described. An unusual form for the inflationary potential is obtained because the inflaton corresponds to a non-trivial path in the configuration space of the two real scalar fields of the model. The model…
We consider the torsional completion of gravity with spinor and scalar fields: we show how in this environment conditions of extreme symmetry or specific approximations imply the scalar field to be constant, so that slow-roll takes place…
As part of our program to develop a general theory of relativity for open systems, we introduce a covariant theory that incorporates the effects of classical and quantum spacetime alterations in a new metric tensor that effectively includes…
During inflation explicit perturbative computations of quantum field theories which contain massless, non-conformal fields exhibit secular effects that grow as powers of the logarithm of the inflationary scale factor. Starobinski\u{\i}'s…