Related papers: Large N Cosmology
The physics of the inflationary universe requires the study of the out of equilibrium evolution of quantum fields in curved spacetime. We present the evolution for both the geometry and the matter (described by the quantum inflaton field)…
The inflationary paradigm enjoys a very wide acceptance in the cosmological community, due in large part to the fact that it is said to "naturally account" for a nearly scale independent power primordial spectrum of fluctuations which is in…
We compute the spectral distribution of the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum, amplified by inflation, after an arbitrary number of background transitions. Using a graphic representation of the process we find that the final spectrum can…
The spectrum of cosmological perturbations in the context of the one-bubble open inflation model is discussed, taking into account fluctuations of the metric. We find that, quite generically,thin wall single field models have no…
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…
Motivated by the possibility of inflation in the cosmic landscape, which may be approximated by a complicated potential, we study the density perturbations in multi-field inflation with a random potential. The random potential causes the…
We propose a new class of natural inflation models based on a hidden scale invariance. In a very generic Wilsonian effective field theory with an arbitrary number of scalar fields, which exhibits scale invariance via the dilaton, the…
We initiate the study of multi-field inflation using holography. Bulk light scalar fields correspond to nearly marginal operators in the boundary theory and the dual quantum field theory is a deformation of a CFT by such operators. We…
The main problem of inflation in string theory is finding the models with a flat potential, consistent with stabilization of the volume of the compactified space. This can be achieved in the theories where the potential has (an approximate)…
We find multi-scalar effective field theories (EFTs) that can achieve a slow inflationary roll despite having a scalar potential that does not satisfy the usual slow-roll condition (d V)^2 << V^2/Mp^2. They evade the usual slow-roll…
We investigate the dynamics of the perturbations of the inflaton scalar field oscillating around a minimum of its effective potential in an expanding universe. With the assumption of smallness of the ratio of the Hubble parameter to the…
Light scalar fields acquire isocurvature fluctuations during inflation. While these fluctuations could lead to interesting observable signatures at small scales, they are strongly constrained on large scales by cosmic microwave background…
We explore the homogeneous background dynamics and the evolution of generated perturbations of cosmological inflation that is driven by multiple scalar fields interacting with a perfect fluid.Then we apply the method to warm inflation…
We calculate the power spectrum of vacuum fluctuations of a generic scalar field in a quantum cosmological setting that is manifestly singularity-free. The power spectrum is given in terms of the usual scale invariant spectrum plus scale…
We study the cosmology of a toy modified theory of gravity in which gravity shuts off at short distances, as in the fat graviton scenario of Sundrum. In the weak-field limit, the theory is perturbatively local, ghost-free and unitary,…
We follow the evolution of the curvaton on superhorizon scales and check that the spectral tilt of the curvaton perturbations is unchanged as the curvaton becomes non-relativistic. Both inflation and pre-big bang cosmology can be treated…
Ekpyrotic bouncing cosmologies have been proposed as alternatives to inflation. In these scenarios, the universe is smoothed and flattened during a period of slow contraction preceding the bounce while quantum fluctuations generate nearly…
We present a numerical integration of the cosmological scalar perturbation equations in warm inflation. The initial conditions are provided by a discussion of the thermal fluctuations of an inflaton field and thermal radiation using a…
We describe the general inflationary dynamics that can arise with a single, canonically coupled field where the inflaton potential is a 4-th order polynomial. This scenario yields a wide range of combinations of the empirical spectral…
In slow roll inflation, the running of the spectral tilt is generically proportional to the square of the deviation from scale invariance, $\alpha_s \propto (n_s-1)^2$, and it is therefore currently undetectable. We present a mechanism able…