Related papers: Generating the curvature perturbation with instant…
Adiabatic (curvature) perturbations are produced during a period of cosmological inflation that is driven by a single scalar field, the inflaton. On particle physics grounds -- though -- it is natural to expect that this scalar field is…
It is usually supposed that inflation is of the slow-roll variety, and that the inflaton generates the primordial curvature perturbation. According to the curvaton hypothesis, inflation need not be slow-roll, and if it is the inflaton…
We study non-linear primordial adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations and their non-Gaussianity. After giving a general formulation in the context of an extended delta N-formalism, we analyse in detail two illustrative examples. The first…
We review conceptual aspects of inflationary scenarios able to produce primordial black holes, by amplifying the size of curvature fluctuations to the level required for triggering black hole formation. We identify general mechanisms to do…
We discuss the possible existence of features in both the primordial power spectrum and bispectrum generated during a stage of single field cosmic inflation. We argue that there are two main classes of features: those produced by a sudden…
A vector curvaton model with a Maxwell kinetic term and varying kinetic function and mass during inflation is studied. It is shown that, if light until the end of inflation, the vector field can generate statistical anisotropy in the…
We revisit inflation coupled with vector fields employing kinetic coupling in the comoving gauge. It is known that there is a cumulative effect $IN^2$ on the curvature power spectrum. For a large number of e-foldings $N$, this contribution…
A mechanism for generating anisotropic enhancements of the curvature perturbation through a vector field is proposed. We find that when the mixing between the inflaton perturbation and the vector-field perturbation is sufficiently strong in…
We carry out a comprehensive analysis of the simplest curvaton model, which is based on two non-interacting massive fields. Our analysis encompasses cases where the inflaton and curvaton both contribute to observable perturbations, and…
We calculate particle production during inflation and in the early stages of reheating after inflation in models with a charged scalar field coupled to Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields. A detailed analysis of the power spectra of…
When the inflaton couples to photons and amplifies electric fields, charged particles produced via the Schwinger effect can dominate the universe after inflation, which is dubbed as the Schwinger preheating. Using the hydrodynamic approach…
In cascade inflation and some other string inflation models, collisions of mobile branes with other branes or orbifold planes occur and lead to interesting cosmological signatures. The fundamental M/string-theory description of these…
We discuss the interaction between perturbations in the inflaton and the background during the preheating phase in simple inflationary models. By numerically solving the Einstein field equations we are able to assess the impact of…
In this paper we propose a mechanism of natural preheating of our universe by introducing an inflaton field dependent mass term for the gravitational wave for a specific class of massive gravity theory. For any single field inflationary…
We investigate the formation of large peaks in the inflationary curvature power spectrum from double-well potentials. In such scenarios, the initial CMB spectrum is created at large field values. Subsequently, the inflaton will cross one of…
We study primordial density perturbations generated by the late decay of a curvaton field whose decay rate may be modulated by the local value of another isocurvature field, analogous to models of modulated reheating at the end of…
We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period…
We show that, whenever the perturbations of some field are excited during inflation by a physical process on sub-horizon scales, they unavoidably generate, even through gravitational interactions alone, a significant resonant IR cascade of…
We investigate the formation of primordial black holes in curvaton models of inflation, where the curvature perturbation is not only generated by the inflaton but also by a light scalar field (the curvaton) that decays after inflation.…
The cosmological curvature perturbation may be generated when some `curvaton' field, different from the inflaton, oscillates in a background of unperturbed radiation. In its simplest form the curvaton paradigm requires the Hubble parameter…