Browsing by Subject "Multi-field inflation"

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    Gardening the landscape and bushwhacking through the swampland : exploring the consequences of quantum gravity for cosmic inflation
    (2022-02-07) Rosati, Robert James; Paban, Sonia; Distler, Jacques; Kilic, Can; Boylan-Kolchin, Michael
    This dissertation consists of five chapters. The first broadly and briefly orients the reader through an introduction to inflationary cosmology, and why we might expect multi-field inflation to take place. The next four chapters correspond to distinct lines of research conducted during my time as a graduate student. Chapter two is based on work conducted with my advisor Sonia Paban, studying the landscape of possible multi-field inflationary models through a random-matrix generated potential [1]. Chapter three is based on work with Diederik Roest and Perseas Christodoulidis, studying universality and prior dependence in multi-field inflation [2]. Chapters four and five are based on work with Sonia Paban and Vikas Aragam, studying inflation in potentials compatible with quantum gravity and rapidly turning trajectories [3, 4].
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    The inflationary universe: a primordial bridge between fundamental theory and observable phenomena
    (2023-12) Aragam, Vikas; Paban, Sonia; Distler, Jacques; Kilic, Can; Boylan-Kolchin, Michael
    This dissertation encapsulates three connected projects that I have worked on as a graduate student. I begin with an introduction to the beautiful intersection of fundamental physics and the primordial universe that is inflationary cosmology. I then present the three main chapters of this dissertation. The first explores the possibility of realizing inflation in steep potentials via multi-field dynamics, which draws on motivations from string theory and the Swampland program. The second chapter examines multi-field inflation at a more fundamental level by rigorously constructing the types of solutions we can achieve in models with features expected in UV-complete theories. The last chapter shifts focus to the gravitational wave signatures that multi-field models of inflation exhibit, with special emphasis on the conditions for these signatures to be observable in upcoming gravitational wave observatories.