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"Brane supersymmetry breaking" occurs in String Theory when the only available combinations of D-branes and orientifolds are not mutually BPS and yet do not introduce tree-level tachyon instabilities. It is characterized by the emergence of…
It is conjectured that inflation, taking account of quantum gravity, leads to a discrete spectrum of cosmological perturbations, instead of the continuous Gaussian spectrum predicted by standard field theory in an unquantized background.…
Inflationary models driven by a large number of axion fields are discussed in the context of type IIB compactifications with N=1 supersymmetry. The inflatons arise as the scalar modes of the R-R two-forms evaluated on vanishing two-cycles…
Power spectra play an important role in the theory of inflation, and their ability to reproduce current observational data to high accuracy is often considered a triumph of inflation, largely because of a lack of credible alternatives. In…
We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection point, and we…
A novel framework is proposed for embedding the natural inflation into the type IIA superstrings compactified on a Calabi-Yau (CY) three-fold. Inflaton is identified with axion of the Universal Hypermultiplet (UH). The other UH scalars…
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 propose a novel scenario in which scalar perturbations, that seed the large scale structure of the Universe, are generated without relying on a scalar field (the inflaton). In this framework, inflation is driven by a de Sitter space-time…
Due to intra-field gravitational interactions, field configurations have a strong negative component to their energy density at the planckian and transplanckian scales, conceivably resulting in a sequestration of the transplanckian field…
Inflation may provide unique insight into the physics at the highest available energy scales that cannot be replicated in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Features in the primordial power spectrum are generically predicted in a wide…
Bursts of particle production during inflation provide a well-motivated mechanism for creating bump like features in the primordial power spectrum. Current data constrains these features to be less than about 5% the size of the featureless…
Chain inflation is an alternative to slow-roll inflation in which the inflaton tunnels along a large number of consecutive minima in its potential. In this work we perform the first comprehensive calculation of the gravitational wave…
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…
Thermal inflation models (which feature two inflationary stages) can display damped primordial curvature power spectra on small scales which generate damped matter fluctuations. For a reasonable choice of parameters, thermal inflation…
Cosmic inflation driven by branes wrapping the extra dimensions involves Kaluza-Klein (KK) degrees of freedom in addition to the zero-mode position of the brane which plays the role of the inflaton. As the wrapped brane passes by localized…
If an adiabatic density perturbation is responsible for large scale structure and the cmb anisotropy, its spectral index $n$ will be measured in the forseeable future with an accuracy $\Delta n\sim .01$. This is precisely the kind of…
The ability to reproduce the observed matter power spectrum $P(k)$ to high accuracy is often considered as a triumph of inflation. In this work, we explore an alternative explanation for the power spectrum based on nonperturbative quantum…
It has been argued that oscillatory features from spectator fields in the primordial power spectrum could be a probe of alternatives to inflation. In this work, we soften this claim by showing that the frequency and amplitude dependence of…
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 adopt methods from statistical field theory to stochastic inflation. For the example of a free test field in de Sitter and power-law inflation, the power spectrum of long-wavelength fluctuations is computed. We study its dependence on…