Unlocking the synergy between CMB spectral distortions and anisotropies

Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectral distortions (SDs) will open a new window on the very early universe, providing new information complementary to that gathered from CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies. In this paper, we study their synergy as a function of the characteristics of the considered experiments. In particular, we examine a wide range of sensitivities for possible SD measurements, spanning from FIRAS up to noise levels 1000 times better than PIXIE, and study their constraining power when combined with current or future CMB anisotropy experiments such as Planck or LiteBIRD plus CMB-S4. We consider a number of different cosmological models such as the ΛCDM, as well as its extensions with the running of the scalar spectral index, the decay or the annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles. While upcoming CMB anisotropy experiments will be able to decrease the uncertainties on inflationary parameters such as As and ns by about a factor 2 in the ΛCDM case, we find that an SD experiment 100 times more sensitive than PIXIE (comparable to the proposed Super-PIXIE satellite) could potentially further contribute to constrain these parameters. This is even more significant in the case of the running of the scalar spectral index. Furthermore, as expected, constraints on DM particles decaying at redshifts probed by SDs will improve by orders of magnitude even with an experiment 10 times worse than PIXIE as compared to CMB anisotropies or Big Bang Nucleosynthesis bounds. On the contrary, DM annihilation constraints will not significantly improve over CMB anisotropy measurements. Finally, we forecast the constraints obtainable with sensitivities achievable either from the ground or from a balloon.

Gravitational waves from preheating in Gauss–Bonnet inflation

We study gravitational wave production in an expanding Universe during the first stages following inflation, and investigate the consequences of the Gauss–Bonnet term on the inflationary parameters for a power-law inflation model with a GB coupling term. Moreover, we perform the analyses on the preheating parameters involving the number of e-folds $$N_{pre}$$ N pre , and the temperature of thermalization $$T_{th},$$ T th , and show that it’s sensitive to the parameters n, and $$\gamma $$ γ , the parameter $$\gamma $$ γ is proposed to connect the density energy at the end of inflation to the preheating energy density. We set a correlation of gravitational wave energy density spectrum with the spectral index $$n_{s}$$ n s detected by the cosmic microwave background experiments. The density spectrum $$\varOmega _{gw}$$ Ω gw shows good consistency with observation for $$\gamma =$$ γ = $$10^{3}$$ 10 3 and $$10^{6}$$ 10 6 . Our findings suggest that the generation of gravitational waves (GWs) during preheating can satisfy the constraints from Planck’s data.

Possible discrepancies between cosmological and electroweak observables in Higgs Inflation

In this work, we revisit the non-minimally coupled Higgs Inflation scenario and investigate its observational viability in light of the current Cosmic Microwave Background, Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and type Ia Supernovae data. We explore the effects of the Coleman-Weinberg approximation to the Higgs potential in the primordial universe, connecting the predictions for the Lagrangian parameters at inflationary scales to the electroweak observables through Renormalization Group methods at two-loop order. Initially, we find that electroweak scale measurements may be dissonant to the limits obtained from the cosmological data sets used in the analysis. Specifically, an ≈ 8σ-discrepancy between the inflationary parameters and the value of the Monte Carlo reconstructed top quark mass is found. However, considering the most recent results obtained by the CMS Collaboration from differential cross-section measurements of the top quark production a good agreement is obtained.

Deviation from Slow-Roll Regime in the EGB Inflationary Models with r ∼ Ne−1

We consider Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet (EGB) inflationary models using the effective potential approach. We present evolution equations in the slow-roll regime using the effective potential and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The choice of the effective potential is related to an expression of the spectral index in terms of e-folding number Ne. The satisfaction of the slow-roll regime is mostly related to the form of the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. The case of r∼1/Ne2 leads to a generalization of α-attractors inflationary parameters to Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity with exponential effective potential. Moreover, the cosmological attractors include models with r∼1/Ne. And we check the satisfaction of the slow-roll regime during inflation for models with r∼1/Ne.

Nonminimal coupling inflation with constant slow roll

In this paper, we study a single-field inflationary model modified by a nonminimal coupling term between the Ricci scalar [Formula: see text] and the scalar field [Formula: see text] in the context of constant-roll inflation. The first-order formalism is used to analyze the constant-roll inflation instead of the standard methods used in the literature. In principle, the formalism considers two functions of the scalar field, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], which lead to the reduction of the equations of motion to first-order differential equations. The approach can be applied to a wide range of cosmological situations since it directly relates the function [Formula: see text] with Hubbles parameter [Formula: see text]. We perform the inflationary analysis for power-law and exponential couplings, separately. Then, we investigate the features of constant-roll potentials as inflationary potentials. Finally, we compare the inflationary parameters of the models with the observations of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies in view of realizing a physically motivated model.

Inflationary constraints in teleparallel gravity theory

In this work, the cosmological inflationary parameters in the correspondence of teleparallel gravity for the scalar–tensor theory are investigated. After the review of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] gravity cosmology, we use the slow-roll approximations to study the behavior of the inflationary parameters namely the spectral index [Formula: see text] and tensor-to-scalar ratio [Formula: see text], and a comparison with observational data for different paradigmatic [Formula: see text] gravity models such as exponential, Linder and power-law models is considered. We also consider the boundary term [Formula: see text] associated with these three models. The obtained behavior of the parameters under consideration shows that it is possible to constrain [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] models based on observational data.

Attractor inflationary solutions in braneworld scenario

This paper is devoted to discuss the attractor solutions of inflationary Chaplygin gas models such as generalized Chaplygin gas, modified Chaplygin gas and generalized cosmic Chaplygin gas in the framework of Randall–Sundrum type II braneworld scenario. We investigate the inflationary parameters like scalar spectral index [Formula: see text], tensor to scalar ratio [Formula: see text], and the running of scalar index [Formula: see text] as a function of e-folding numbers [Formula: see text] in the presence of attractor: [Formula: see text]. We evaluate and reformulate these parameters under high energy condition. In this inflationary scenario, we develop [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] planes. We also found that these cosmological parameters and perturbation strongly agree with the recent Planck data 2018 for considered Chaplygin gas models instead of [Formula: see text] in case of generalized cosmic Chaplygin gas.

Reconstruction of warm Chaplygin gas inflationary models

By assuming the specific Chaplygin gas model, we study the reconstruction of warm inflation model with the help of tensor-to-scalar ratio [Formula: see text] and scalar spectral index [Formula: see text]. In this regard, we take flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) metric and discuss the general forms of dissipative coefficient [Formula: see text] as well as effective potential [Formula: see text] for two dissipative regimes i.e., the weak and strong. We use inflationary parameters such as slow-roll parameters, power spectrum of the curvature perturbation, tensor spectrum, spectral index, scalar-to-tensor ratio and Hubble parameter to find the generalized form of dissipative coefficient and effective potential. We discuss the results of dissipative coefficient and reconstructed potential in detail for the specific choice of tensor-to-scalar ratio [Formula: see text] and scalar spectral index [Formula: see text].

Inflation with Scalar-Tensor Theory of Gravity

The latest released data from Planck in 2018 put up tighter constraints on inflationary parameters. In the present article, the in-built symmetry of the non-minimally coupled scalar-tensor theory of gravity is used to fix the coupling parameter, the functional Brans–Dicke parameter, and the potential of the theory. It is found that all the three different power-law potentials and one exponential pass these constraints comfortably, and also gracefully exit from inflation.

Generalization of cosmological attractor approach to Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity

We construct models with the Gauss–Bonnet term multiplied by a function of the scalar field leading to an inflationary scenario. The consideration is related to the slow-roll approximation. The cosmological attractor approach gives the spectral index of scalar perturbations which is in a good agreement with modern observation and allows for variability of the tensor-to-scalar ratio. We reconstruct models with variability of parameters, which allows one to reproduce cosmological attractor predictions for inflationary parameters in an approximation of the leading order of 1/N in Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity.