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Recent pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments have reported strong evidence of the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB). If interpreted as primordial Gravitational Waves (pGWs), the signal favors a strongly blue-tilted spectrum. On the other hand, the Ekpyrosis-bouncing cosmology with a strongly blue-tilted GW spectrum, i.e., $n_T \simeq 2$, offers a potential explanation for the observed SGWB signal. In this paper, we construct a concrete Ekpyrosis-bouncing model, and show its capacity to intepret the PTA result without pathologies. Both tensor and scalar perturbations are analysed with constraints from the current observations., Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures and 1 table

This work investigates Early Dark Energy (EDE) scenarios as a potential precombination solution to the Hubble tension problem in the $F(R)$ gravity theory. We first develop a dimensionless quantity to visualize the density ratio between the EDE field and matter. Following existing scenarios, we then discuss conditions under which the Hubble tension could be alleviated by introducing a temporary injection of $10\%$ fractional energy around the time of matter-radiation equality between $z=10^{3}-10^{4}$. We further confront these models with local gravity tests and find inconsistencies with observations. Taking a broader view, we convert constraints from local gravity tests into constraints for general EDE in $F(R)$ gravity. We eventually arrive at a no-go theorem for $F(R)$ gravity, which restricts nontrivial modifications to General Relativity in the early universe., Comment: v1: 26 pages, 11 figures

The mimetic gravity theory is one of the interesting modified gravity theories, which aims to unify the matter component of our universe within the power of gravity. The mimetic-like theory can also be responsible for primordial perturbations production, e.g., when the mimetic field is set to be like a curvaton field, and the adiabatic perturbation can thus be generated from the isocurvature perturbation via usual curvaton mechanism [1]. In the original mimetic curvaton model, the parameter $\lambda$ was purely an algebraic multiplier, lack of any perturbed dynamics. In the current paper, we treat $\lambda$ as an auxiliary field, with its perturbation $\delta\lambda$ evolving alongside. We show that, with such a consideration, the adiabatic perturbation can still be generated from the curvaton mechanism, and becomes scale invariant with different field space configurations.

$f(Q)$ gravity is an extension of the symmetric teleparallel equivalent to general relativity (STEGR). This work shows that based on the scalar-nonmetricity formulation, a scalar mode in $f(Q)$ gravity has a negative kinetic energy. This conclusion holds regardless of the coincident gauge frequently used in STEGR and $f(Q)$ gravity. To study the scalar mode, we further consider the covariant $f(Q)$ gravity as a special class in higher-order scalar tensor (HOST) theory and rewrite the four scalar fields, which play a role of the St\"{u}eckelberg fields associated with the diffeomorphism, by vector fields. Applying the standard Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formulation to the new formulation of the $f(Q)$ gravity, we demonstrate that the ghost scalar mode can be eliminated by the second-class constraints, thus ensuring that $f(Q)$ gravity is a healthy theory., Comment: 31 pages, 0 figures

In this paper, we construct a bounce inflation cosmological scenario in the framework of the modified symmetric teleparallel gravity, namely f(Q) theory, and investigate the tensor perturbations therein. As is well-known, the tensor perturbations generated in the very early Universe (inflation and pre-inflation regions) can account for the primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) that are to be detected by the next generation of GW experiments. We discuss the stability condition of the tensor perturbations in the bounce inflation process and investigate in detail the evolution of the perturbation variable. The general form of the tensor power spectrum is obtained both for large as well as small scale modes. As a result, we show for both kinds of modes (short or long wavelength modes), and the tensor spectrum may get a positive tilt in the parametric range where the tensor perturbation proves to be stable -- this interestingly hints an enhancement of gravitational waves' amplitude in the background of the f(Q) bounce-inflation scenario. Moreover, we study the LQC-like scenario as a specific case of our model, in which, the primordial tensor power spectrum turns out to be nearly scale-invariant on both small and large scales., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures

A primordial black hole (PBH) is interesting to people for its ability of explaining dark matter as well as supermassive astrophysical objects. In the normal inflation scenario, the generation of PBHs usually requires an enhanced power spectrum of scalar perturbation at the end of inflation era, which is expected when the dispersion relation of the inflaton field gets modified. In this work, we study a kind of inflation model called {the \it Dirac-Born-Infeld-inspired nonminimal kinetic coupling (DINKIC)} model, where the dispersion relation is modified by a square root existing in the field Lagrangian. We discuss the enhancement of scalar power spectrum due to the modified dispersion relation, as well as the abundance of PBHs produced by the Press-Schechter collapse mechanism. We also discuss the formation of scalar-induced gravitational waves by linear scalar perturbations., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures

In this $\textit{Letter}$, we search for the signal of the primordial black holes (PBHs) by correlating the $\gamma$-ray emissions in the MeV energy band produced by the Hawking evaporation and the lensing effect of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We use the conservative case of the astrophysical model as much as possible in the calculations, since the potential astrophysical origins dominate the observed emission in the MeV energy band. By carefully discussing the appropriate energy bands corresponding to different PBHs masses, it is worth expecting a tight constraint on the fraction of the Schwarzschild PBHs in the mass range of $10^{16} - 5\times10^{17}\,{\rm g}$, by simulations of the sensitivity of the future CMB-S4 project and the $\gamma$-ray telescope e-ASTROGAM. Furthermore, we also consider the PBHs model with spins, and find that the constraining ability of the PBHs fraction from the correlation between CMB lensing and $\gamma$-ray emissions can be improved by another order of magnitude, which could importantly fill the gaps with PBHs fraction limits in the mass range of $5\times 10^{17} - 2\times 10^{18}\,{\rm g}$., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

In this paper, we investigate the primordial perturbations of inflation model induced from the multi-field mimetic gravity, where there are two field during inflation, and thus both adiabatic and isocurvature perturbation modes are generated. We show that although it is true that the original adiabatic perturbation mode loses the kinetic term due to the constraint equation, by applying the curvaton mechanism where one of the field is viewed as curvaton field, the adiabatic perturbation can actually be transferred from the isocurvature one at the end of inflation. Detailed calculations are performed for both inflationary and the consequent matter-dominant epochs. Therefore, the so-called "non-propagating problem" of the adiabatic mode will actually do no harm to the multi-field mimetic inflation models., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, looking forward to every comment, have been accepted by Phys. Rev. D

$f(Q)$ gravity is an extension of the symmetric teleparallel equivalent to general relativity. We demonstrate the Hamiltonian analysis of $f(Q)$ gravity with fixing the coincident gauge condition. Using the standard Dirac-Bergmann algorithm, we show that $f(Q)$ gravity has 8 physical degrees of freedom. This result reflects that the diffeomorphism symmetry of $f(Q)$ gravity is completely broken due to the gauge fixing. Moreover, in terms of the perturbations, we discuss the possible mode decomposition of these degrees of freedom., Comment: 19 pages

As a mysterious celestial body predicted by General Relativity, black holes have been confirmed by observations in recent years. But there are still many unknown properties waiting for us to discover, one of the famous problems is the quantization of black holes. The quantization of black holes gives new research significance to black holes, but the quantization of black holes is difficult to prove. Here we propose a new method to verify the quantization of black holes: Carnot cycle. Our results show that if the black holes have quantized energy levels, the work W they impose to us via the Carnot cycle should also be quantized. We indirectly verify the quantization of black holes by detecting the quantization of W, and contrast it with the classic Carnot cycle. In addition, we have also verified the correctness of the second law of thermodynamics under the premise of considering the quantization of black holes., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) is a promising tool to probe the very early universe where the standard model of particle physics and cosmology are connected closely. As a possible component of SGWB, gravitational waves (GW) from bubble collisions during the first order cosmological phase transitions deserve comprehensive analyses. In 2017, Ryusuke Jinno and Masahiro Takimoto proposed an elegant analysis approach to derive the analytical expressions of energy spectra of GW from bubble collisions in Minkowski spacetime avoiding large-scale numerical simulations for the first time[26]. However, they neglect the expansion of the universe and regard the duration of phase transitions as infinity in their derivation which could deviate their estimations from true values. For these two reasons, we give a new expression of GW spectra by adopting their method, switching spacetime background to FLRW spacetime, and considering a finite duration of phase transitions. By denoting $\sigma$ as the fraction of the speed of phase transitions to the expansion speed of the universe, we find when $\sigma$ is around $\mathcal{O}(10)$, the maxima of estimated GW energy spectra drop by around 1 order of magnitude than the results given by their previous work. Even when $\sigma=100$, the maximum of GW energy spectrum is only $65\%$ of their previous estimation. Such a significant decrease may bring about new challenges for the detectability of GW from bubble collisions. Luckily, by comparing new spectra with PLI (\textit{power-law integrated}) sensitivity curves of GW detectors, we find that the detection prospect for GW from bubble collisions is still promising for DECIGO, BBO, LISA, and TianQin in the foreseeable future., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; This paper has been accepted by JHEP

It is well known that a primordial black hole (PBH) can be generated in the inflation process of the early universe, especially when the inflation field has a number of non-trivial features that could break the slow-roll condition. In this study, we investigate a toy model of inflation with bumpy potential, which has one or several bumps. We determined that the potential with multi-bump can generate power spectra with multi-peaks in small-scale region, which can in turn predict the generation of primordial black holes in various mass ranges. We also consider the two possibilities of PBH formation by spherical and elliptical collapses. Finally, we discuss the scalar-induced gravitational waves(SIGWs)generated by linear scalar perturbations at second order., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures

There have been thousands of cosmological models for our early universe proposed in the literature, and many of them claimed to be able to give rise to scale-invariant power spectrum as was favored by the observational data. It is thus interesting to think about whether there are some relations among them, e.g., the duality relation. In this paper, we investigate duality relations between cosmological models in framework of general relativity (GR) , not only with varying slow-roll parameter $\epsilon$, but also with sound speed $c_s$, which can then be understood as "adiabatic duality". Several duality relationships are formulated analytically and verified numerically. We show that models with varying $\epsilon$ and constant $c_s$ can be dual in scalar spectral index, but not tensor one. On the other hand, allowing both $\epsilon$ and $c_s$ to vary can make models dual in both scalar and tensor spectral indices., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, title and context slightly changed, figures updated

In this paper, we discuss about the possibility to enhance the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ under the condition of Trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC), thus $r\sim O(10^{-3})$ could be observable within the sensitivity of future experiments. We make use of the scalar-tensor theory where inflaton is nonminimally coupled to gravity. After demonstrating that the TCC condition could be modified in scalar-tensor theory, we show that due to the effects of modified gravity at the end of inflation, a large $r\sim O(10^{-3})$ could be allowed without violating the TCC. Moreover, the modification can give rise to a weak coupling of gravity to the inflation field. If such an effect has been present as early as inflation starts, it would imply that in our case, the Universe might have experienced an asymptotically safe period at its early time., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure

In this paper, we investigate the potential-driven inflation models with a disformal coupling to Einstein Gravity, to find out the effects of such a coupling on these models. We consider a simple coupling form which introduces only one parameter, and three inflation models, namely the chaotic inflation, the Higgs inflation, and the monodromy inflation. We find that the disformal coupling can have some modifications to the observational variables of these models such as the power spectrum, the spectral index as well as the tensor/scalar ratio, although not too large due to the constraints on the disformal coupling parameter. With these modifications, one has the opportunity of improving models that lie on the edge of the favorable regions of Planck observational data, such as monodromy inflation. Moreover, the non-trivial sound speed of tensor perturbations (gravitational waves) may come out, due to the coupling of gravity and kinetic terms of the field., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, comments are welcome

The recent observations from CMB have imposed a very stringent upper-limit on the tensor/scalar ratio $r$ of inflation models, $r < 0.064$, which indicates that the primordial gravitational waves (PGW), even though possible to be detected, should have a power spectrum of a tiny amplitude. However, current experiments on PGW is ambitious to detect such a signal by improving the accuracy to an even higher level. Whatever their results are, it will give us much information about the early Universe, not only from the astrophysical side but also from the theoretical side, such as model building for the early Universe. In this paper, we are interested in analyzing what kind of inflation models can be favored by future observations, starting with a kind of general action offered by the effective field theory (EFT) approach. We show a general form of $r$ that can be reduced to various models, and more importantly, we show how the accuracy of future observations can put constraints on model parameters by plotting the contours in their parameter spaces., Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures with title changed and contents improved

We study spherically symmetric solutions with a scalar field in the shift-symmetric subclass of the Horndeski theory. Constructing an effective energy-momentum tensor of the scalar field based on the two-fluid model, we decompose the scalar field into two components: dark matter and dark energy.We find the dark-matter fluid is pressure-less, and its distribution of energy density obeys the inverse-square law. We show the scalar field dark matter can explain the galaxy rotation curve and discuss the time evolution of the dark matter in the cosmic background., Comment: 25 pages,revtex4-1

We study the chameleon field dark matter, dubbed \textit{scalaron}, in $F(R)$ gravity in the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) epoch. With an $R^{2}$-correction term required to solve the singularity problem for $F(R)$ gravity, we first find that the scalaron dynamics is governed by the $R^{2}$ term and the chameleon mechanism in the early universe, which makes the scalaron physics model-independent regarding the low-energy scale modification. In viable $F(R)$ dark energy models including the $R^{2}$ correction, our analysis suggests the scalaron universally evolves in a way with a bouncing oscillation irrespective of the low-energy modification for the late-time cosmic acceleration. Consequently, we find a universal bound on the scalaron mass in the BBN epoch, to be reflected on the constraint for the coupling strength of the $R^2$ term, which turns out to be more stringent than the one coming from the fifth force experiments. It is then shown that the scalaron naturally develops a small enough fluctuation in the BBN epoch, hence can avoid the current BBN constraint placed by the latest Planck 2018 data, and can also have a large enough sensitivity to be hunted by the BBN, with more accurate measurements for light element abundances as well as the baryon number density fraction., Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, Prepared for submission to JHEP

There are many possibilities of scenarios in the early universe, which can give rise to the same observational signals due to the degeneracy among each other, caused by equivalence under the conformal transformations. In order to break the degeneracy, in this paper we take into account the so-called "frame-invariant variables" proposed by A. Ijjas and P. J. Steinhardt in \cite{Ijjas:2015zma}. We discuss how the different scenarios will distribute in different parametric space constructed from those variables, waiting for the judgement of real observations in the future. Several concrete models with explicit non-minimal coupling functions are also discussed., Comment: 13 pages,6 figures, comments welcome

In this work, we revisit the perturbations that are generated in the bounce inflation scenario constructed within the framework of $f(T)$ theory. It has been well known that pure $f(T)$ theory cannot give rise to bounce inflation behavior, so aside from the gravity part, we also employ a canonical scalar field for minimal extension. We calculate the perturbations in $f(T)$ theory using the well-established ADM formalism, and find various conditions to avoid their pathologies. We find that it is indeed very difficult to obtain a healthy model without those pathologies, however, one may find a way out if a potential requirement, say, to keep every function continuous, is abandoned., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figures. Comments are welcome

In the previous work, a new kind of inflation model was proposed, which has the interesting property that its perturbation equation of motion gets a correction of k^4, due to the non-linearity of the kinetic term. Nonetheless, the scale-invariance of the power spectrum remains valid, both in large-k and small-k limits. In this paper, we investigate in detail the spectral index, the index running and the tensor/scalar ratio in this model, especially on the potential-driven case, and compare the results to the current PLANCK/BICEP observational data. We also discuss the tensor spectrum in this case, which is expected to be tested by the future observations on primordial gravitational waves.

When coupling fermions to gravity, torsion is naturally induced. We consider the possibility that fermion bilinears can act as a source for torsion, altering the dynamics of the early universe such that the big bang gets replaced with a classical non-singular bounce. We extend previous studies in several ways: we allow more general fermion couplings, consider both commuting and anti-commuting spinors, and demonstrate that with an appropriate choice of potential one can easily obtain essentially arbitrary equations of state, including violations of the null energy condition, as required for a bounce. As an example, we construct a model of ekpyrotic contraction followed by a non-singular bounce into an expanding phase. We analyze cosmological fluctuations in these models, and show that the perturbations can be rewritten in real fluid form. We find indications that spinor bounces are stable, and exhibit several solutions for the perturbations. Interestingly, spinor models do not admit a scalar-vector-tensor decomposition, and consequently some types of scalar fluctuations can act as a source for gravitational waves already at linear order. We also find that the first order dynamics are directionally dependent, an effect which might lead to distinguished observational signatures., Comment: 43 pages, 10 figures

The aim of this paper is to probe the features of the bouncing cosmology with the current observational data. Basing on bounce inflation model, with high derivative term, we propose a general parametrization of primordial power spectrum which includes the typical bouncing parameters, such as bouncing time-scale, and energy scale. By applying Markov Chain Monto Carlo analysis with current data combination of Planck 2015, BAO and JLA, we report the posterior probability distributions of the parameters. We find that, bouncing models can well explain CMB observations, especially the deficit and oscillation on large scale in TT power spectrum., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

Based on the Effective Field Theory (EFT) of cosmological perturbations, we explicitly clarify the pathology in nonsingular cubic Galileon models and show how to cure it in EFT with new insights into this issue. With the least set of EFT operators that are capable to avoid instabilities in nonsingular cosmologies, we construct a nonsingular model dubbed the Genesis-inflation model, in which a slowly expanding phase (namely, Genesis) with increasing energy density is followed by slow-roll inflation. The spectrum of the primordial perturbation may be simulated numerically, which shows itself a large-scale cutoff, as the large-scale anomalies in CMB might be a hint for., Comment: 20 pages, 1 table, 9 figures; published in EPJC

In this paper, we explore the nonsingular cosmology within the framework of the Effective Field Theory(EFT) of cosmological perturbations. Due to the recently proved no-go theorem, any nonsingular cosmological models based on the cubic Galileon suffer from pathologies. We show how the EFT could help us clarify the origin of the no-go theorem, and offer us solutions to break the no-go. Particularly, we point out that the gradient instability can be removed by using some spatial derivative operators in EFT. Based on the EFT description, we obtain a realistic healthy nonsingular cosmological model, and show the perturbation spectrum can be consistent with the observations., Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, published in JHEP

In this paper, we continue our study on the curvaton model with nonminimal derivative coupling (NDC) to Einstein gravity proposed in our previous work, focusing on the reheating mechanism. We found that according to whether the curvaton has dominated the background after the end of inflation, it will have two different behaviors of evolution, which should be the general property of curvaton with nonminimal couplings. This will cause diffferent rates of particle creation, which goes on via the parametric resonance process. The reheating temperature is estimated for both cases in which reheating completes before and after curvaton domination, and the constraints are quite loose compared to that of overproduction of gravitino. Finally we investigated the evolution of curvature perturbation during reheating. We have shown both analytically and numerically that the curvature perturbation will not blow up during the resonance process., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. corrections are made to match the published version

In this paper we study a new class of inflation models which generalize the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action with the addition of a nonminimal kinetic coupling (NKC) term. We dubbed this model as the {\it new DBI inflation model}. The NKC term does not bring new dynamical degree of freedom, so the equations of motion remain of second order. However, with such a coupling, the action is no longer linear with respect to the Einstein curvature term ($R$ or $G^{\mu\nu}$), which leads to a correction term of $k^4$ in the perturbations. The new DBI inflation model can be viewed as theories beyond Horndeski. Without violating nearly scale-invariance, such a correction may lead to new effects on the inflationary spectra that could be tested by future observations., Comment: 6 pages, no figure

Anomalies in recent observational data indicate that there might be some "anisotropic hair" generated in an inflation period. To obtain general information about the effects of this anisotropic hair to inflation models, we studied anisotropic inflation models that involve one vector and one scalar using several types of potentials. We determined the general relationship between the degree of anisotropy and the fraction of the vector and scalar fields, and concluded that the anisotropies behave independently of the potentials. We also generalized our study to the case of multi-directional anisotropies., Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. Sci.China Phys. Mech. Astron. in press

It is of great interest to connect cosmology in the early universe to the Standard Model of particle physics. In this paper, we try to construct a bounce inflation model with the standard model Higgs boson, where the one loop correction is taken into account in the effective potential of Higgs field. In this model, a Galileon term has been introduced to eliminate the ghost mode when bounce happens. Moreover, due to the fact that the Fermion loop correction can make part of the Higgs potential negative, one naturally obtains a large equation of state(EoS) parameter in the contracting phase, which can eliminate the anisotropy problem. After the bounce, the model can drive the universe into the standard higgs inflation phase, which can generate nearly scale-invariant power spectrum., Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, Published in JCAP12(2015)019

If the Hartle-Hawking wave function is the correct boundary condition of our universe, the history of our universe will be well approximated by an instanton. Although this instanton should be classicalized at infinity, as long as we are observing a process of each history, we may detect a non-classicalized part of field combinations. When we apply it to a dark energy model, this non-classicalized part of fields can be well embedded to a quintessence and a phantom model, i.e., a quintom model. Because of the property of complexified instantons, the phantomness will be naturally free from a big rip singularity. This phantomness does not cause perturbative instabilities, as it is an effect emergent from the entire wave function. Our work may thus provide a theoretical basis for the quintom models, whose equation of state (EoS) can cross the cosmological constant boundary (CCB) phenomenologically., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

We study a nonsingular bounce inflation model, which can drive the early universe from a contracting phase, bounce into an ordinary inflationary phase, followed by the reheating process. Besides the bounce that avoided the Big-Bang singularity which appears in the standard cosmological scenario, we make use of the Horndesky theory and design the kinetic and potential forms of the lagrangian, so that neither of the two big problems in bouncing cosmology, namely the ghost and the anisotropy problems, will appear. The cosmological perturbations can be generated either in the contracting phase or in the inflationary phase, where in the latter the power spectrum will be scale-invariant and fit the observational data, while in the former the perturbations will have nontrivial features that will be tested by the large scale structure experiments. We also fit our model to the CMB TT power spectrum., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures

In our previous work \cite{Feng:2013pba}, we have shown a curvaton model where the curvaton has a nonminimal derivative coupling to gravity. Such a coupling could bring us scale-invariance of the perturbations for wide range constant values of the equation-of-state of the cosmic background at the early time. In this paper, we continue our study by fully analyzing its perturbations up to the third order. Apart from the usual 2-point correlation function that has already been calculated in \cite{Feng:2013pba}, we have also taken into account the 3-point correlation functions including pure scalar part, pure tensor part, as well as the cross-correlations between scalar and tensor perturbation modes. We find that for pure scalar part, the 3-point correlation functions can generate non-Gaussianities that fits the PLANCK data very well. For pure tensor and mixed parts, the shape functions have peaks at squeezed and equilateral limits respectively, responsible for sizable $f_{NL}^{sqz}$ and $f_{NL}^{eql}$, which could be tested by the future observatioanl data., Comment: Published in Phys.Rev. D90 (2014) 123508

In this paper, we study the case of single field inflation within the framework of modified gravity theory where the gravity part has an arbitrary form $f(R)$. Via a conformal transformation, this case can be transformed into its Einstein frame where it looks like a two-field inflation model. However, due to the existence of the isocurvature modes in such a multi-degree-of-freedom (m.d.o.f.) system, the (curvature) perturbations are not equivalent in two frames, so in despite of its convenience, it is illegal to treat the perturbations in its Einstein frame as the "real" ones as we always do for pure $f(R)$ theory or single field with nonminimal coupling. Here by pulling the results of curvature perturbations back into its original Jordan frame, we show explicitly the power spectrum and spectral index of the perturbations in the Jordan frame, as well as how it differs from the Einstein frame. We also fit our results with the newest Planck data. Since there are large parameter space in these models, we show that it is easy to fit the data very well., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, substantially improved, matching with the published version

The recently released BICEP2 data detected the primordial B-mode polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) map which strongly supports for a large tensor-to-scalar ratio, and thus, is found to be in tension with the Planck experiment with no evidence of primordial gravitational waves. Such an observational tension, if confirmed by forthcoming measurements, would bring a theoretical challenge for the very early universe models. To address this issue, we in the present paper revisit a single field inflation model, which includes a modulated potential. We show that this inflation model can give rise to a sizable negative running behavior for the spectral index of primordial curvature perturbation and a large tensor-to-scalar ratio. Applying these properties, our model can nicely explain the combined Planck and BICEP2 observations. To examine the validity of analytic calculations, we numerically confront the predicted temperature and B-mode power spectra with the latest CMB observations and explicitly show that our model is consistent with the current data., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We present a nonsingular scenario in which an inflation era goes after a bounce from a contracting scenario in the early universe. The contracting of the universe is supposed to be slow, such that the initial anisotropies will not grow too fast to become dominant and destroy the bounce. After the bounce, the universe enters into an inflationary region and reheating phase, where primordial perturbations are generated. The tensor-to-scalar ratio of the perturbations are expected to be consistent with the newly released data, $r=0.2^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$. The addition of the bounce process is aimed at getting rid of the annoying Big-Bang Singularity, which generally exist in pure inflation models., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

We show a curvaton model, in which the curvaton has a nonminimal derivative coupling to gravity. Thanks to such a coupling, we find that the scale-invariance of the perturbations can be achieved for arbitrary values of the equation-of-state of background, provided that it is nearly a constant. We also discussed about tensor perturbations, the local non-Gaussianities generated by the nonminimal derivative coupling curvaton model, as well as the adiabatic perturbations which are transferred from the field perturbations during the curvaton decay., Comment: 11 pages

Within the framework of RG improved inflationary cosmology motivated by asymptotically safe gravity, we study the dynamics of a scalar field which can be interpreted as the Higgs field. The background trajectories of this model can provide sufficient inflationary e-folds and a graceful exit to a radiation dominated phase. We study the possibility of generating primordial curvature perturbations through the Standard Model Higgs boson. This can be achieved under finely tuned parameter choices by making use of the modulated reheating mechanism. The primordial non-gaussianity is expected to be sizable in this model. Though tightly constrained by the newly released Planck CMB data, this model provides a potentially interesting connection between collider and early universe physics., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

We investigate non-singular bounce realizations in the framework of ghost-free generalized Galileon cosmology, which furthermore can be free of the anisotropy problem. Considering an Ekpyrotic-like potential we can obtain a total Equation-of-State (EoS) larger than one in the contracting phase, which is necessary for the evolution to be stable against small anisotropic fluctuations. Since such a large EoS forbids the Galileon field to generate the desired form of perturbations, we additionally introduce the curvaton field which can in general produce the observed nearly scale-invariant spectrum. In particular, we provide approximate analytical and exact semi-analytical expressions under which the bouncing scenario is consistent with observations. Finally, the combined Galileon-curvaton system is free of the Big-Rip after the bounce., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures

Following our previous work in [JCAP 1206, 041 (2012)], in this paper, we continue our study of reconstructing $f(R)$ modified gravity models that can be connected to a single scalar field in general relativity via conformal transformation, which lead to scale-invariant power spectrum in the early universe. With $f(R)$ modified gravity, one does not need to introduce extra scalar, the nature of which are to be explained. Different from general nonminimal coupling theory, the behavior of the $f(R)$ theory has been fixed by its counterpart in Einstein frame, and thus have one to one correspondence. Numerical plots of the functional form of $f(R)$ as well as the evolution of $R$ in terms of cosmic time $t$ are also presented., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

A nonminimal coupling single scalar field theory, when transformed from Jordan frame to Einstein frame, can act like a minimal coupling one. Making use of this property, we investigate how a nonminimal coupling theory with scale-invariant power spectrum could be reconstructed from its minimal coupling counterpart, which can be applied in the early universe. Thanks to the coupling to gravity, the equation of state of our universe for a scale-invariant power spectrum can be relaxed, and the relation between the parameters in the action can be obtained. This approach also provides a means to address the Big-Bang puzzles and anisotropy problem in the nonminimal coupling model within Jordan frame. Due to the equivalence between the two frames, one may be able to find models that are free of the horizon, flatness, singularity as well as anisotropy problems., Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures

In this paper we revisit the dynamical dark energy model building based on single scalar field involving higher derivative terms. By imposing a degenerate condition on the higher derivatives in curved spacetime, one can select the models which are free from the ghost mode and the equation of state is able to cross the cosmological constant boundary smoothly, dynamically violate the null energy condition. Generally the Lagrangian of this type of dark energy models depends on the second derivatives linearly. It behaves like an imperfect fluid, thus its cosmological perturbation theory needs to be generalized. We also study such a model with explicit form of degenerate Lagrangian and show that its equation of state may cross -1 without any instability., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

In this paper, we study a curvaton model where the curvaton is acted by Galileon field. We calculate the power spectrum of fluctuation of G-curvaton during inflation and discuss how it converts to the curvature perturbation after the end of inflation. We estimate the bispectrum of curvature perturbation induced, and show the dependence of non-Gaussianity on the parameters of model. It is found that our model can have sizable local and equilateral non-Gaussianities to up to ${\cal O}(10^2)$, which is illustrated by an explicit example., Comment: 13 pages, no figure

We present nonsingular, homogeneous and isotropic bouncing solutions of the conformal Galileon model. We show that such solutions necessarily begin with a radiation-dominated contracting phase. This is followed by a quintom scenario in which the background equation of state crosses the cosmological constant boundary allowing for a nonsingular bounce which in turn is followed by Galilean Genesis. We analyze the spectrum of cosmological perturbations in this background. Our results show that the fluctuations evolve smoothly and without any pathology, but the adiabatic modes form a blue tilted spectrum. In order to achieve a scale-invariant primordial power spectrum as required by current observations, we introduce a light scalar field coupling to the Galileon kinetically. We find two couplings which yield a scale-invariant spectrum, one of which requires a fine tuning of the initial conditions. This model also predicts a blue tilted spectrum of gravitational waves stemming from quantum vacuum fluctuations in the contracting phase., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted by JCAP

We examine various entropic inflation scenarios, under the light of eternality. After describing the inflation realization and the normal condition for inflation to last at the background level, we investigate the conditions for eternal inflation with the effect of thermal fluctuations produced from standard radiation and from the holographic screen. Furthermore, we incorporate stochastic quantum fluctuations through a phenomenological, Langevin analysis, studying whether they can affect the inflation eternality. In single-holographic-screen scenarios eternality can be easily obtained, while in double-screen considerations inflation is eternal only in the high-energy regime. Thus, from the cosmological point of view, one should take these into account before he can consider entropic gravity as a candidate for the description of nature. However, form the string theory point of view, inflation eternality may form the background for the "Landscape" of string/M theory vacua, leading to new perspectives in entropy gravity., Comment: 13 pages, no figure