Research Projects

Inflation is a promising paradigm for explaining the beginning of the universe, with slow-roll inflation being the most promising due to its theoretical simplicity and success in explaining cosmological observations. However, this requires a flat inflaton potential, which is unnatural from the point of view of Quantum Field Theory (QFT). This makes inflation UV sensitive, making it a probe for the highest energy scales. This project focuses on two UV completeness conditions: Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) and fundamental principles expected in scattering amplitudes in EFTs, which have a theoretically consistent UV theory. The team consists of senior and junior researchers from India and Japan, aiming to derive constraints on cosmological models, particularly models of cosmic inflation, from imposing ultraviolet UV completeness conditions. The project will also investigate the consistency of Effective Field Theories EFTs when coupled to quantum gravity and construct explicit UV complete cosmological models.