UV physics and the speed of sound during inflation

We consider inflation as an effective field theory and study the effects of the addition to the Lagrangian of irrelevant operators with higher powers of first derivatives on its dynamics and observables. We find that significant deviations from the two-derivative dynamics are possible within the regime of validity of the effective field theory. Focusing on monomial potentials we show that the main effect of the terms under consideration is to reduce the speed of sound thereby reducing the tensor fraction, while having little impact on the scalar tilt. Crucially, these effects can arise even when the UV cut-off is well above the inflationary Hubble parameter

Inflation with a graceful exit in a random landscape

We develop a stochastic description of small-field inflationary histories with a graceful exit in a random potential whose Hessian is a Gaussian random matrix as a model of the unstructured part of the string landscape. The dynamical evolution in such a random potential from a small-field inflation region towards a viable late-time de Sitter (dS) minimum maps to the dynamics of Dyson Brownian motion describing the relaxation of non-equilibrium eigenvalue spectra in random matrix theory. We analytically compute the relaxation probability in a saddle point approximation of the partition function of the eigenvalue distribution of the Wigner ensemble describing the mass matrices of the critical points. When applied to small-field inflation in the landscape, this leads to an exponentially strong bias against small-field ranges and an upper bound $N\ll 10$ on the number of light fields $N$ participating during inflation from the non-observation of negative spatial curvature.Comment: Published versio

Parametric Resonance in the Early Universe - A Fitting Analysis

Particle production via parametric resonance in the early Universe, is a nonperturbative, non-linear and out-of-equilibrium phenomenon. Although it is a well studied topic, whenever a new scenario exhibits parametric resonance, a full re-analysis is normally required. To avoid this tedious task, many works present often only a simplified linear treatment of the problem. In order to surpass this circumstance in the future, we provide a fitting analysis of parametric resonance through all its relevant stages: initial linear growth, non-linear evolution, and relaxation towards equilibrium. Using lattice simulations in an expanding grid in 3 + 1 dimensions, we parametrize the dynamics outcome scanning over the relevant ingredients: role of the oscillatory field, particle coupling strength, initial conditions, and background expansion rate. We emphasize the inaccuracy of the linear calculation of the decay time of the oscillatory field, and propose a more appropriate definition of this scale based on the subsequent non-linear dynamics. We provide simple fits to the relevant time scales and particle energy fractions at each stage. Our fits can be applied to post-inflationary preheating scenarios, where the oscillatory field is the inflaton, or to spectator-field scenarios, where the oscillatory field can be e.g. a curvaton, or the Standard Model Higgs.Comment: Extended discussion about the late-time dynamics of the system in quadratic models. Minor changes in numerical fits with respect first version. It matches version published in JCAP (30 pages + Appendices + Bibliography, 13 figures

Supervised Land Use Inference from Mobility Patterns

This paper addresses the relationship between land use and mobility patterns. Since each particular zone directly feeds the global mobility once acting as origin of trips and others as destination, both roles are simultaneously used for predicting land uses. Specifically this investigation uses mobility data derived from mobile phones, a technology that emerges as a useful, quick data source on people's daily mobility, collected during two weeks over the urban area of Málaga (Spain). This allows exploring the relevance of integrating weekday-weekend trip information to better determine the category of land use. First, this work classifies patterns on trips originated and terminated in each zone into groups by means of a clustering approach. Based on identifiable relationships between activity and times when travel peaks appear, a preliminary categorization of uses is provided. Then, both grouping results are used as input variables in a K-nearest neighbors (KNN) classification model to determine the exact land use. The KNN method assumes that the category of an object must be similar to the category of the closest neighbors. After training the models, the findings reveal that this approach provides a precise land use categorization, yielding the best accuracy results for the major categories of land uses in the studied area. Moreover, as a result, the weekend data certainly contributes to finding more precise land uses as those obtained by just weekday data. In particular, the percentage of correctly predicted categories using both weekday and weekend is around 80%, while just weekday data reach 67%. The comparison with actual land uses also demonstrates that this approach is able to provide useful information, identifying zones with a specific clear dominant use (residential, industrial, and commercial), as well as multiactivity zones (mixed). This fact is especially useful in the context of urban environments where multiple activities coexist.Unión Europea Programa Operativo FEDER de Andalucía 2011–2015Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad PTQ-13-0642

Economic transition and the distributions of income and wealth

Using a model of wealth distribution dynamics and occupational choice, the author investigates the distributional consequences of policies and developments associated with the transition from central planning to a market system. The model suggests that even an efficient privatization designed to be egalitarian may lead to increases in inequality (and possibly poverty), both during the transition and in the new steady state. Creating new markets in services that are also supplied by the public sector may also contribute to an increase in inequality. So can labor market reforms that lead to a decompression of the earnings structure and to greater flexibility in employment. The results underline the importance of retaining government provision of basic public goods and services, removing barriers that prevent the participation of the poor in the new private sector, and ensuring that suitable safety nets are in place.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,Environmental Economics&Policies