Related papers: Initial state effects on the cosmic microwave back…
Non-Gaussian statistics in the distribution of large scale structure, and in temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background, can be used to constrain inflationary models. Data on the cosmic microwave background from Planck…
Sudden phase transitions during inflation can give rise to strongly enhanced primordial density perturbations on scales much smaller than those directly probed by cosmic microwave background anisotropies. In this paper, we study the effect…
In order to calculate the power spectrum generated during a stage of inflation, we have to specify the quantum state of the inflaton perturbations, which is conventionally assumed to be the Bunch-Davies vacuum. We argue that this choice is…
At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions…
We present a consistent low energy effective field theory framework for parameterizing the effects of novel short distance physics in inflation, and their possible observational signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background. We consider the…
For a certain type of modified dispersion relations, the vacuum quantum state for very short wavelength cosmological perturbations is scale-invariant and it has been suggested that this may be the source of the scale-invariance observed in…
We examine the constraints cosmological observations can place on any trans-Planckian corrections to the primordial spectrum of perturbations underlying the anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background. We focus on models of…
Cosmological $\alpha$-attractors stand out as particularly compelling models to describe inflation in the very early universe, naturally meeting tight observational bounds from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We investigate…
How sensitive are the predictions of inflation to pre-inflationary conditions when the number of efolds of inflation is not too large? In an attempt to address this question, we consider a simple model where the inflationary era is preceded…
Given the latest observational constraints coming from the joint analyses of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Planck Satellite and other missions, we point out the possibility of reconciling fundamental particle-physics models of…
There is an apparent power deficit relative to the Lambda-CDM prediction of the CMB spectrum at large scales, which, though not yet statistically significant, persists from WMAP to Planck data. We first present a simple toy model…
We formulate a gradual dynamical transition from a power-law inflation era with a scalar field to a radiation era with no scalar field including inhomogeneous perturbations to the Friedmann- Robertson-Walker universe. We show that for the…
We show that it is possible to simulate realistic inhomogeneities during cosmological inflation with high precision using {Numerical Relativity}. Stochastic initial conditions are set in line with the Bunch-Davies {vacuum} and satisfy the…
We study the implications of the recently proposed Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC) for early universe cosmology and in particular inflationary cosmology. The TCC leads to the conclusion that if we want inflationary cosmology to…
Scalar fields with an energy density dominated by its kinetic part may have played a relevant role in the very early stages of the Universe. Compared to the standard inflationary paradigm, they may lead to modifications in observable…
The vacuum inflation with a boundary condition specified at a short-distance scale in a generally primeval non-flat Universe, and implications of the correspondingly modified primordial power spectrum via the WMAP data are investigated. We…
We investigate the phenomenological consequences of a modification of the initial state of a single inflationary field. While single-field inflation with the standard Bunch-Davies initial vacuum state does not generally produce a measurable…
The physical history of the Universe is completed by including the quantum planckian and trans-planckian phase before Inflation in the Standard Model of the Universe in agreement with observations. A new quantum precursor phase appears…
We systematically investigate the effect of short distance physics on the spectrum of temperature anistropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background produced during inflation. We present a general argument-assuming only low energy locality-that…
We consider a minimum uncertainty vacuum choice at a fixed energy scale Lambda as an effective description of trans-Planckian physics, and discuss its implications for the linear perturbations of a massless scalar field in power-law…