We investigate inflationary dynamics in the framework of the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. In the model under consideration, the inflaton field is nonminimally coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet curvature invariant, so that the latter appears to be dynamically important. We consider a quartic potential for the inflaton field, in particular, the one asymptotically connected to the Higgs inflation, and a wider class of coupling functions not considered in the earlier work. Keeping in mind the observational bounds on the parameters—the amplitude of scalar perturbations $A_s$, spectral index $n_s$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, we demonstrate that the model a quartic potential and the proposed coupling function is in agreement with observations.

The possibility to construct inflationary models for the renormalization-group (RG) improved potentials corresponding to scalar electrodynamics and to $SU(2)$ and $SU(5)$ models is investigated. In all cases, the tree-level potential, which corresponds to the cosmological constant in the Einstein frame, is seen to be nonsuitable for inflation. Rather than adding the Hilbert-Einstein term to the action, quantum corrections to the potential, coming from the RG equation, are included. The inflationary scenario is analyzed with unstable de Sitter solutions that correspond to positive values of the coupling function, only. We show that, for the finite $SU(2)$ model and $SU(2)$ gauge model, there are no de Sitter solutions suitable for inflation, unless exit from it occurs according to some weird, nonstandard scenarios. Inflation is realized both for scalar electrodynamics and for $SU(5)$ RG-improved potentials, and the corresponding values of the coupling function are seen to be positive. It is shown that, for quite reasonable values of the parameters, the inflationary models obtained both from scalar electrodynamics and from the $SU(5)$ RG-improved potentials are in good agreement with the most recent observational data coming from the Planck 2013 and BICEP2 collaborations.

We study the relation between the Jordan-Einstein frame transition and the possible description of the crossing of singularities in flat Friedmann universes, using the fact that the regular evolution in one frame can correspond to crossing singularities in the other frame. We show that some interesting effects arise in simple models such as one with a massless scalar field or another wherein the potential is constant in the Einstein frame. The dynamics in these models and in their conformally coupled counterparts are described in detail, and a method for the continuation of such cosmological evolutions beyond the singularity is developed. We compare our approach with some other, recently developed, approaches to the problem of the crossing of singularities.

A nonlocal gravity model, which does not assume the existence of a new dimensional parameter in the action and includes a function $f({\square }^{-1}R)$, with $\square$ the d’Alembertian operator, is considered. The model is proven to have de Sitter solutions only if the function $f$ satisfies a certain second-order linear differential equation. The de Sitter solutions corresponding to the simplest case, an exponential function $f$, are explored, without any restrictions on the parameters. If the value of the Hubble parameter is positive, the de Sitter solution is stable at late times, both for negative and for positive values of the cosmological constant. Also, the stability of the solutions with zero cosmological constant is discussed and sufficient conditions for it are established in this case. New de Sitter solutions are obtained, which correspond to the model with dark matter, and stability is proven in this situation for nonzero values of the cosmological constant.

We investigate the scalar field dynamics of models with nonminimally coupled scalar fields in the presence of the Gauss-Bonnet term and derive the structure of the effective potential and conditions for stable de Sitter solutions in general. Specializing to specific couplings, we explore the possibility of realizing the stable de Sitter configurations which may have implications for both the early Universe and late time evolution.