Analytical and numerical studies of inflation and reheating

This research project will develop analytic and numerical tools needed to explore the physics of early universe inflation and reheating. In particular it will involve calculating how scalar perturbations (density fluctuations) and tensorial perturbations (gravitational waves) are produced during different scenarios of inflation and reheating over a wide range of scales. This will include signatures detectable on short scales, through the direct detection of gravitational waves, and on large scales through the signatures left in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and in large scale structure (LSS).