Putting Cosmological Inflation to the Test

Cosmological inflation is one of the leading paradigms for explaining the physical conditions that prevailed in the early Universe. It consists in a phase of very high energy accelerated expansion that solves the hot big bang model problems. When combined with Quantum Mechanics, it also provides a causal mechanism for generating cosmological fluctuations on large scales.

In this talk I will explain how the most up-to-date cosmological observations, incorporated in the Bayesian model comparison approach, can be used to extract the favoured models among hundreds of proposed scenarios. I will insist on the role played by reheating, which connects inflation to the subsequent radiation era, and during which ordinary matter as we see it today is produced. I will also discuss some extensions to the minimal single-field setups, where extra scalar fields are added and play a role both during inflation and reheating.