Theoretical and Observational Constraints on Brane Inflation and Study of Scalar Perturbations through the Effective Field Theory Formalism

Abstract

In this thesis, consisting of two main parts, we study observational signatures of cosmic (super)strings in the context of D-brane inflation and properties of scalar perturbations on generic homogeneous inflating backgrounds. In the first part we study the production, nature and decay processes of cosmic superstrings in two widely used effective models of D-brane inflation, namely the $D3/D7$ and $D3/\bar{D}3$ models. Specifically, we show that the strings produced in $D3/D7$ are of local axionic type and we place constraints on the tension while arguing that the supersymmetry breaking mechanism of the model needs to be altered according to supergravity constraints on constant Fayet-Iliopoulos terms. Moreover, we study radiative processes of cosmic superstrings on warped backgrounds. We argue that placing the string formation in a natural context such as $D3/\bar{D}3$ inflation, restricts the forms of possible radiation from these objects. Motivated by these string models, which inevitably result in the presence of heavy moduli fields during inflation, in the second part, using the Effective Field Theory (EFT) of inflation, we construct operators that capture the effects of massive scalars on the low energy dynamics of inflaton perturbations. We compute the energy scales that define the validity window of the EFT such as the scale where ultra violet (UV) degrees of freedom become operational and the scale where the EFT becomes strongly coupled. We show that the low energy operators related to heavy fields induce a dispersion relation for the light modes admitting two regimes: a linear and a non linear/dispersive one. Assuming that these modes cross the Hubble scale within the dispersive regime, we compute observables related to two- and three-point correlators and show how they are directly connected with the scale of UV physics.