Cosmic Inflation: Background dynamics, Quantum fluctuations and Reheating

Abstract

These lecture notes provide a pedagogical introduction to some aspects of the inflationary cosmology, including the background scalar field dynamics, generation of primordial seed perturbations via quantum fluctuations during inflation, and the process of reheating after inflation in the single-field inflationary paradigm.

Comments: 117 pages, 26 figures, preliminary version (based on a set of supplementary lectures delivered for the PhD coursework at IUCAA), comments and suggestions are welcome