Some Remarks on Oscillating Inflation

In a recent paper Damour and Mukhanov describe a scenario where inflation may continue during the oscillatory phase. This effect is possible because the scalar field spends a significant fraction of each period of oscillation on the upper part of the potential. Such additional period of inflation could push perturbations after the slow roll regime to observable scales. Although in this work we show that the small region of the Damour-Mukhanov parameter q gives the main contribution to oscillating inflation, it was not satisfactory understood until now. Furthermore, it gives an expression for the energy density spectrum of perturbations, which is well behaved in the whole physical range of q .Comment: 4 pages including figures caption, 3 ps-figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Migrants at work: perspectives, perceptions and new connections. Work, Employment and Society, 34 (5) . pp. 745-748. ISSN 0950-0170

Migration – and the experiences of migrants – continue to occupy an important and controversial place in the scholarly and political debates on contemporary labour markets and societies. As new scenarios emerge at local, national and global levels, new insights and perspectives become necessary. The articles in this themed issue reflect the interest Work, Employment and Society has had in the topic of labour migrations and migrants at work for well over a decade and which led, for example, to the themed issue Migration at Work: Spaces, Borders and Boundaries in 32(5), 2018. Migration has of course been a prominent issue across the social sciences, and in recent years particularly in relation to the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 and to intra-European migration ahead of and in light of Brexit. The experiences of migrants from Eastern and Central Europe in the workplace, their overqualification and devaluing of their cultural capital, and their positioning within segmented labour markets have produced a number of articles in past issues (e.g. Ciupijus, 2011; Samaluk, 2016; Sirkeci et al., 2018) to which those in the current issue (Leschke and Weiss; Rydzik and Anitha) make an important addition. [...

Gendered dynamics of international labour migration in the Kurdistan region - Iraq

This study is part of a larger multi-country research project ‘Gendered Dynamics of International Labour Migration’ involving four countries Lebanon, Pakistan Turkey and KRI with the aim of highlighting the diversity of migrants in relation to sectors of employment, educational and skill levels and countries of origin. There is currently little research on gendered migration in KRI except for displaced and refugee women. Key Findings The key drivers of migration: Economic failure in the home country; lack of opportunities; low income; support for family through remittances, especially children left behind; discriminatory practices and family-harassment, prevented from working; getting overseas experience and pursuing career opportunities; marriage; political conflict and instability (for refugees from Iran and Syria). Recruitment agencies are central to the process. Recruitment agencies facilitate the global migration of service workers (domestic and care, hospitality, construction) both in countries of origin and destination. In these sectors, migrants paid agencies in their home countries. In KRI they are licensed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs with responsibilities for recruitment training, residence, health and safety, and departure. A number of the women interviewed would recommend the KRI as a safe place and better treatment than in GCC countries. Most were satisfied with their salaries and were able to send back remittances to support families. However, many had no health insurance. Some of the lower-skilled women were faced with poor working conditions, and racist attitudes. Some employers forced the women to work long hours without days off, had racist attitudes towards them and in some instances prevented them from practising their religion. There is a lack of any policy to protect foreign workers in KRI, even though some regulations exist for foreign workers. The workers often did not know their rights under their contracts as they were issued in Arabic and Kurdish. The skilled women were generally happy with their working conditions and were aware of their rights if problems arose. Sexual harassment in workplaces and public urban spaces. Sexual harassment was experienced at work, on transport and in public spaces particularly in the evening, although some felt safe in the city at night. Cultural challenges and perceptions by locals. Language, religion, nationality, race and gender might be different from the employers or the people they are interacting with. Therefore, their different world views and perspectives affect the social interactions and relationships and contibrute to an identity crisis for the women who consider themselves as members of the wider Kurdish community. Recommendations Explore fully the diversity of gendered labour migration in KRI by migrants and refugees from neighbouring countries. Have more regular government supervision of agencies and employers, making the legislation for recruitment agencies a reality. Update and improve the instructions and regulations of 2015 by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Extend work rights and social protection (work insurance, medical services) to household workers. Include migrant workers in the Kurdistan Region’s Social Protection Policy such as work insurance and medical services. Further include and activate Labour Unions in issues related to women domestic workers

The moduli problem at the perturbative level

Moduli fields generically produce strong dark matter -- radiation and baryon -- radiation isocurvature perturbations through their decay if they remain light during inflation. We show that existing upper bounds on the magnitude of such fluctuations can thus be translated into stringent constraints on the moduli parameter space m_\sigma (modulus mass) -- \sigma_{inf} (modulus vacuum expectation value at the end of inflation). These constraints are complementary to previously existing bounds so that the moduli problem becomes worse at the perturbative level. In particular, if the inflationary scale H_{inf}~10^{13} GeV, particle physics scenarios which predict high moduli masses m_\sigma > 10-100 TeV are plagued by the perturbative moduli problem, even though they evade big-bang nucleosynthesis constraints.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (revtex) -- v2: an important correction on the amplitude/transfer of isocurvature modes at the end of inflation, typos corrected, references added, basic result unchange

On Metric Preheating

We consider the generation of super-horizon metric fluctuations during an epoch of preheating in the presence of a scalar field \chi quadratically coupled to the inflaton. We find that the requirement of efficient broad resonance is concomitant with a severe damping of super-horizon \delta\chi quantum fluctuations during inflation. Employing perturbation theory with backreaction included as spatial averages to second order in the scalar fields and in the metric, we argue that the usual inflationary prediction for metric perturbations on scales relevant for structure formation is not strongly modified.Comment: 5 latex pages, 1 postscript figure included, uses revtex.sty in two column format and epsf.sty, some typos corrected and references added. Links and further material at http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/sigl/r4.htm