Speaker
Description
In this talk, we present different inflationary scenarios based on extended theories of gravity and test their observational viability in light of the most recent CMB data. In the first part, we will analyze the robustness of the standard Starobinsky inflation by inserting it into a generalized framework that is motivated in the braneworld scenario. Following this line, we consider the period of inflation as driven by a supergravity-inspired arctan potential and then study its theoretical and
observational predictions, as well as obtain constraints on the reheating phase and its inflationary parameters. Another class of supergravity theories consists of the so-called $\alpha$-attractors, for which we investigate the observational viability of a model with a double-well inflationary potential. A further class of braneworld-inspired scenarios comes from the generalization of the well-known power law inflation, for which we examine the observational viability for the case of a non-minimal coupling to gravity. Lastly, we present the case of an extended theory of gravity of the type $f(R,~T)$ plus a scalar field and apply the first-order formalism to find analytical solutions to cosmological scenarios. Using the equivalence between the Jordan and Einstein frames we calculate the theoretical predictions for the inflationary parameters and confront them with the CMB temperature data.
