A. Standard Model of particle physics 41 B. Radiative corrections in an effective field theory 43 C. Supersymmetry (SUSY) 47 1. Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) 47 2. Soft SUSY breaking Lagrangian 49 3. Next to MSSM (NMSSM) 50 4. Gravity mediated SUSY breaking 51 5. Gauge mediated SUSY breaking 52 6. Split SUSY 54 7. Renormalization group equations in the MSSM 54 D. F -and D -flat directions of MSSM 56 1. Non-renormalizable superpotential corrections 57 2. Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the physical degrees of freedom 60 E. N = 1 Supergravity (SUGRA) 61 1. SUSY generalization of one-loop effective potential 62 2. Inflaton-induced SUGRA corrections 63 3. No-scale SUGRA 64 F. (SUSY) Grand Unified Theories 65 1. SU (5) and SO (10) GUT 66 2. Symmetry breaking in SUSY GUT 69 G. Symmetry breaking and topological defects 71 1. Formation of cosmic defects during or after inflation in 4 D 71 2. Formation of cosmic (super)strings after brane inflation 73 3. Cosmological consequences of (topological) defects 73 IV. Models of inflation 76 A. What is the inflaton ? 76 B. Non-SUSY one-field models 77 1. Large field models 78 2. Small field models 80 C. Non-SUSY models involving several fields 83 1. Original hybrid inflation 83 3