Related papers: Can MAP and Planck map Planck physics?
Oscillating massive fields in the primordial universe can be used as Standard Clocks. The ticks of these oscillations induce features in the density perturbations, which directly record the time evolution of the scale factor of the…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy observed by WMAP has an anomalous dip at l~20 and bump at l~40. One explanation for this structure is the presence of features in the primordial curvature…
We study the amplification of electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations induced by the evolution of scalar metric perturbations at the end of inflation. Such perturbations break the conformal invariance of Maxwell equations in…
The recently released BICEP2 data detected the primordial B-mode polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) map which strongly supports for a large tensor-to-scalar ratio, and thus, is found to be in tension with the Planck…
The recent Planck results and future releases on the horizon present a key opportunity to address a fundamental question in inflationary cosmology of whether primordial density perturbations have a quantum or thermal origin, i.e. whether…
We assess two potential signals of the formation of our universe by the decay of a false vacuum. Negative spatial curvature is one possibility, but the window for its detection is now small. However, another possible signal is a suppression…
We consider the amplification of electromagnetic quantum vacuum fluctuations induced by the presence of metric perturbations at the end of inflation. We obtain the amplitude of the corresponding magnetic fields on super-Hubble scales and…
We consider an inflationary universe model in which the phase of accelerated expansion was preceded by a non-singular bounce and a period of contraction which involves a phase of deceleration. We follow fluctuations which exit the Hubble…
Observations of the polarization of the cosmic microwave backround (CMB) have the potential to place much tighter constraints on cosmological parameters than observations of the fluctuations in temperature alone. We discuss using CMB…
We discuss the spectrum of scalar density perturbations from warm inflation when the friction coefficient $\Gamma$ in the inflaton equation is dependent on the inflaton field. The spectral index of scalar fluctuations depends on a new…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments generally infer a temperature fluctuation from a measured intensity fluctuation through the first term in the Taylor expansion of the Planck function, the relation between the intensity in a…
Recent microwave polarization measurements from the BICEP2 experiment may reveal a long-sought signature of inflation. However, these new results appear inconsistent with the best-fit model from the Planck satellite. We suggest a…
We study inflation and the generation of primordial fluctuations in $f(R)$ gravity's rainbow. We calculate the cosmological perturbations and then the scalar and tensor primordial power spectrum. We contrast the predictions of the model…
We study the effects of primordial magnetic fields on the inflationary potential in the context of a warm inflation scenario. The model, based on global supersymmetry with a new-inflation-type potential and a coupling between the inflaton…
We propose a model of inflation driven by the relaxation of an initially Planckian cosmological constant due to diffusion. The model can generate a (approximately) scale invariant spectrum of (adiabatic) primordial perturbations with the…
We consider the influence of mode - mode coupling in the inflaton field on the spectrum of primordial fluctuations. To this end, we formulate a phenomenological model where the inflaton fluctuations are treated as a fluid undergoing…
We have developed a precise dictionary between the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations and the parameters of the effective field theory (EFT) of inflation that determine the primordial power spectrum (PPS). At lowest order the EFT…
We argue that the observed large-scale cosmic microwave anomalies, discovered by WMAP and confirmed by the Planck satellite, are most naturally explained in the context of a marginally-open universe. Particular focus is placed on the dipole…
In the framework of inflation, scales which nowadays correspond to large scale structures were smaller than the Planck length at the beginning of inflation. Therefore, measurements of CMBR anisotropy or surveys of galaxies and of clusters…