Inflationary Nonminimal Models: An Investigative Exploration

In the current era of precision cosmology, many models of the early Universe have been ruled out by observations. Alternative formulations of gravity are a promising avenue for motivating novel models as well as rescuing models which do not conform to measurements. In this project, we propose to classify and build non-minimal models of inflation in Palatini and teleparallel gravity, offering a comprehensive dictionary for comparing and identifying physically equivalent theories in terms of their observables. In addition, we propose to develop a framework for studying the global phase portraits of such models, gaining a deeper understanding of the physical features of such theories that are not encapsulated by the slow-roll dynamics and quantifying their naturalness and the goodness of the slow-roll approximation.