Related papers: Phantom inflation and the "Big Trip"
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
Inflation driven by a single dark spinor field is discussed. We define the notion of a dark spinor field and derive the cosmological field equations for such a matter source. The conditions for inflation are determined and an exactly…
The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
We introduce in this paper a new framework for obtaining a period of exponential inflation that is entirely driven by the quadratic kinetic energy of a scalar field. In contrast to recent attempts to realize scalar field inflation without…
Recent detection of $B$-mode polarization induced from tensor perturbations by the BICEP2 experiment implies so-called large field inflation, where an inflaton field takes super-Planckian expectation value during inflation, at a high energy…
Cosmological inflation, if it occurred, radically alters the picture of the `big bang', which would merely point to reheating at the end of inflation. Moreover, this reheating may be only local, so that inflation continues elsewhere and…
Loop quantum cosmology provides a nice solution of avoiding the big bang singularity through a big bounce mechanism in the high energy region. In loop quantum cosmology an inflationary universe is emergent after the big bounce, no matter…
We investigate a nonsingular initial state of the Universe which leads to inflation naturally. The model is described by a scalar field with a quadratic potential in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity. The curvature of this initial…
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…
The big bang model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories are introduced. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent…
We present preliminary results on the possible effects that primordial magnetic fields can have for a warm inflation scenario, based on global supersymmetry, with a new-inflation-type potential. This work is motivated by two considerations:…
String theory gives rise to various mechanisms to generate primordial inflation, of which ``brane inflation'' is one of the most widely considered. In this scenario, inflation takes place while two branes are approaching each other, and the…
Supersymmetric hybrid inflation is an exquisite framework to connect inflationary cosmology to particle physics at the scale of grand unification. Ending in a phase transition associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking, it can naturally…
We present a mechanism for the emergence of cosmic acceleration within the mean-field approximation of Group Field Theory models of quantum gravity. Depending on the interaction type, the resulting cosmological dynamics can either feature a…
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 examine the transition from a fresh inflationary scenario to a radiation dominated universe when the inflaton field is coupled to gravity. We show that this transition is very natural when this coupling is $\xi=1/4$ at the end of fresh…
We propose a new model-independent mechanism for producing primordial black holes from a period of multi-field inflation. This requires an enhancement of primordial fluctuations at short scales compared to their value at CMB scales. We show…
We study an inflationary scenario with a vector impurity. We show that the universe undergoes anisotropic inflationary expansion due to a preferred direction determined by the vector. Using the slow-roll approximation, we find a formula to…
Space-based missions studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have progressively refined the parameter space in conventional models of inflation shortly ($\sim 10^{-37}$ seconds) after the big bang. While most inflationary scenarios…
We present an inflationary universe model which utilizes two coupled real scalar fields. The inflation field $\phi$ experiences a first order phase transition and its potential dominates the energy density of the Universe during the…