Related papers: A Consistency Relation for Power Law Inflation in …
I summarize recent work on (1) constraining spike-like features in the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure; (2) nonstandard Friedmann equation in stabilized warped 6D brane cosmology, with applications to inflation; and…
In hybrid inflationary models, inflation ends by a sudden instability associated with a steep ridge in the potential. Here we argue that this feature can generate a large contribution to the curvature perturbation on observable scales. This…
This short note emphasises a potential tension between string models of inflation based on systems of branes and antibranes and the spectrum of strings in curved space, in particular the requirement that the leading Regge trajectory extends…
We show that the use of higher dimensional wrapped branes can significantly extend the inflaton field range compared to brane inflation models which use D3-branes. We construct a simple inflationary model in terms of 5-branes wrapping a…
In arXiv:0908.4089, we have proposed a model where natural inflation is realized on a steep potential as a consequence of the interaction of the inflaton with gauge fields through an axion-like coupling. In the present work we study the…
It is well known that the non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{_{\rm NL}}$ characterizing the scalar bi-spectrum can be expressed in terms of the scalar spectral index in the squeezed limit, a property that is referred to as the consistency…
We provide an explicit solution representing an anisotropic power law inflation within the framework of rolling tachyon model. This is generated by allowing a non-minimal coupling between the tachyon and the world-volume gauge field on…
The inflaton potential in four-dimensional theory is rather arbitrary, and fine-tuning is required generically. By contrast, inflation in the brane world scenario has the interesting feature that the inflaton potential is motivated from…
In this paper, we study a curvaton model described by a Dirac-Born-Infeld-like action. We calculate the spectrum of curvature perturbation induced by DBI-curvaton and estimate its non-Gaussianity. We find that in the limit of low sound…
We investigate in the context of brane inflation the possibility of additional light scalar fields generating significant power spectrum and non-Gaussianities at the end of inflation affecting the CMB scale observations. We consider the…
We study an effective four-dimensional theory with an action with two scalar fields minimally coupled to gravity, and with a matter action which couples to the two scalar fields via an overall field-dependent coefficient in the action. Such…
We propose a new model of slow-roll inflation in string cosmology, based on warped throat supergravity solutions displaying `walking' dynamics, i.e. the coupling constant of the dual gauge theory slowly varies over a range of energy scales.…
A characteristic of D-brane inflation is that fluctuations in the inflaton field can propagate at a speed significantly less than the speed of light. This yields observable effects that are distinct from those of single-field slow roll…
We calculate the bispectrum of single-field braneworld inflation, triggered by either an ordinary scalar field or a cosmological tachyon, by means of a gradient expansion of large-scale non-linear perturbations coupled to stochastic…
We discuss a brane based inflationary scenario in which an initially non-supersymmetric configuration involving a D4 brane is dynamically transformed into a supersymmteric one in a background space-time geometry determined by a stack of D6…
We analyze the spectrum of density perturbations generated in models of the recently discovered "D-cceleration" mechanism of inflation. In this scenario, strong coupling quantum field theoretic effects sum to provide a DBI-like action for…
In a simple reanalysis of the KKLMMT scenario, we argue that the slow roll condition in the D3-anti-D3-brane inflationary scenario in superstring theory requires no more than a moderate tuning. The cosmic string tension is very sensitive to…
We discuss relationship between inflation and various models of production of density inhomogeneities due to strings, global monopoles, textures and other topological and non-topological defects. Neither of these models leads to a…
In the standard inflationary scenario based on a minimally coupled scalar field, canonical or non-canonical, the subluminal propagation of speed of scalar perturbations ensures the following consistency relation: $r \leq - 8n_{_T}$, where…
We provide a pedagogical overview of inflation in string theory. Our theme is the sensitivity of inflation to Planck-scale physics, which we argue provides both the primary motivation and the central theoretical challenge for the subject.…