Speaker
Description
Classically scale-invariant (and perturbative) theories provide a way to understand large hierarchies, as scales are generated through dimensional transmutation. They always lead to first-order phase transitions, since symmetries are radiatively broken, and they generically feature quasi-flat potentials, which are suitable for inflation. I will discuss a simple but fully realistic model of this kind that accounts for all observational evidence of new physics and is remarkably compatible with the most recent constraints on inflationary observables from both the Planck/BICEP/Keck and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaborations. This model illustrates how classical scale invariance generically leads to a non-standard cosmology in which inflation occurs in two stages: a slow-roll stage and a thermal stage, separated by a radiation-dominated era.