Speaker
Description
Inflation was introduced to address fundamental issues of the classical Hot Big Bang Theory. Moreover, investigations of the Early Universe could require extensions of Einstein’s General Relativity in several directions, as generically predicted, for instance, by String Theory. Higher order terms in the curvature can play an important role in this respect, as shown by the Starobinsky model. In this work, we explore a large class of Einstein-Cartan models based on the introduction of non-linear Holst curvature terms in the presence of dynamical torsion. They naturally lead to inflationary models where the inflaton can be identified with a pseudoscalar field driving in a natural way a single-field slow-roll inflationary phase, fully compatible with the current observational evidences. It is also highlighted how these models can provide post-inflationary matter-antimatter asymmetry (baryogenesis) via thermal or non-thermal leptogenesis and how they can be embedded in supersymmetric models.
