Related papers: Why there is something rather than nothing (out of…
Detailed observations of the temperature fluctuations in the microwave background radiation indicate that we live in an open universe. From the size of these fluctuations it is concluded that the geometry of the universe is quite close to…
Universe structure emerges in the unreduced, complex-dynamical interaction process with the simplest initial configuration (two attracting homogeneous fields). The unreduced interaction analysis avoiding any perturbative model gives…
We find a number of complex solutions of the Einstein equations in the so-called unimodular version of general relativity, and we interpret them as saddle points yielding estimates of a gravitational path integral over a space of almost…
The fundamental paradox of the incompatibility of the observed large-scale uniformity of the Universe with the fact that the age of the Universe is finite is overcome by the introduction of an initial a period of superluminal expansion of…
This paper consider an universe dominated by baryonic matter, radiation and a nonminimally coupled massive scalar field under the action of a symmetry breaking potential. Inflation occurs naturally with appropriated slow-roll values. The…
A multidimensional cosmological model with space-time consisting of n (n>1) Einstein spaces M_i is investigated in the presence of a cosmological constant Lambda and m homogeneous minimally coupled scalar fields as a matter source. Classes…
We consider the statistical properties of vacua and inflationary trajectories associated with a random multifield potential. Our underlying motivation is the string landscape, but our calculations apply to general potentials. Using random…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
We propose a method for demonstrating equivalences beyond the saddlepoint approximation between quantities in quantum gravity that are defined by the Euclidean path integral, without assumptions about holographic duality. The method…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
At the mesoscopic scales --- which interpolate between the macroscopic, classical, geometry and the microscopic, quantum, structure of spacetime --- one can identify the density of states of the geometry which arises from the existence of a…
The phase space of quantum mechanics can be viewed as the complex projective space endowed with a Kaehlerian structure given by the Fubini-Study metric and an associated symplectic form. We can then interpret the Schrodinger equation as…
In this paper, I revisit the microcanonical partition function, or density of states (DOS), of general relativity. By using the minisuperspace path integral approximation, I directly calculate the $S^2 \times Disc$ topology sector of the…
The dominant topologies in the Euclidean path integral for quantum gravity differ sharply according on the sign of the cosmological constant. For $\Lambda>0$, saddle points can occur only for topologies with vanishing first Betti number and…
In the framework of the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary proposal, we investigated quantum creation of the multidimensional universe with a cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) but without matter fields. We have found that the classical solutions of…
Matrix theory is a proposed non-perturbative definition of superstring theory in which space is emergent. We begin a study of cosmology in the context of matrix theory. Specifically, we show that matrix theory can lead to an emergent…
[abridged] We propose a model of the Universe (dubbed $\eta$CDM) featuring a stochastic evolution of the cosmological quantities, that is meant to render small deviations from homogeneity/isotropy on scales of $30-50\, h^{-1}$ Mpc at late…
We investigate the cosmological observables using the Euclidean path integral approach. Specifically, we study both the no-boundary compact instantons scenario and the Euclidean wormholes scenario that can induce the creation of two…
We point out that, due to the nonlinearity of the Einstein equations, a homogeneous approximation in cosmology leads to the appearance of an additional term in the Friedmann equation. This new term is associated with the spatial…
A new component of the cosmic medium, a light scalar field or ''quintessence '', has been proposed recently to explain cosmic acceleration with a dynamical cosmological constant. Such a field is expected to be coupled explicitely to…