Related papers: Why there is something rather than nothing (out of…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
We present a new approach to early universe cosmology. Inflation is replaced by a phase transition in which both matter and geometry are created simultaneously. We calculate the spectrum of metric perturbations and show that it is flat. We…
The microcanonical ensemble has long been a starting point for the development of thermodynamics from statistical mechanics. However, this approach presents two problems. First, it predicts that the entropy is only defined on a discrete set…
In quantum theory, equilibrium statistical mechanics is usually formulated through the canonical ensemble, whose privileged status is tied to the Euclidean continuation of time evolution. The microcanonical ensemble, by contrast, is…
We propose a scenario in which the dark components of the Universe are manifestations of a single bulk viscous fluid. Using dynamical system methods, a qualitative study of the homogeneous, isotropic background scenario is performed in…
I study several aspects of the path(st) integral we formulated in previous papers on energetic causal sets with Cortes and others. The focus here is on quantum field theories, including the standard model of particle physics. I show that…
The physical history of the Universe is completed by including the quantum planckian and trans-planckian phase before Inflation in the Standard Model of the Universe in agreement with observations. A new quantum precursor phase appears…
Quintessential inflation provides a unified description of the early and late accelerated phases of the Universe, linking the inflationary epoch to the present-day dark energy-dominated era through a single scalar degree of freedom. In this…
By making use of a class of steep exponential type of potentials, which has been recently used to describe quintessential inflation, we show how a unified picture for both inflation, dark energy and dark matter can emerge entirely through…
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a…
The early universe provides an opportunity for quantum gravity to connect to observation by explaining the large-scale structure of the Universe. In the group field theory (GFT) approach, a macroscopic universe is described as a GFT…
We present a cosmological model arising from a gravitational theory with an infinite tower of higher-order curvature invariants that can reproduce the entire evolution of the Universe: from inflation to late-time acceleration, without…
In systems with long-range interactions, since energy is a non-additive quantity, ensemble inequivalence can arise: it is possible that different statistical ensembles lead to different equilibrium descriptions, even in the thermodynamic…
It is proposed that space is a four-dimensional Euclidean space with universal time. Originally this space was filled with a uniform substance, pictured as a liquid, which at some time became supercooled. Our universe began as a nucleation…
We heal the cosmological constant problem by means of a \emph{cancellation mechanism} that adopts a phase transition during which quantum fluctuations are eliminated. To this purpose, we propose that a generalized scalar (dark) matter field…
An anthropic understanding of the cosmological constant requires that the vacuum energy at late time scans from one patch of the universe to another. If the vacuum energy during inflation also scans, the various patches of the universe…
We extend to multidimensional cosmology Vilenkin's prescription of tunnelling from nothing for the quantum origin of the observable Universe. Our model consists of a $D+4$-dimensional spacetime of topology ${\cal R}\times {\cal S}^3…
The Universe is modeled as a binary mixture whose constituents are described by a van der Waals fluid and by a dark energy density. The dark energy density is considered either as the quintessence or as the Chaplygin gas. The irreversible…
Inflation and quintessence can both be described by a single scalar field. The cosmic time evolution of this cosmon field realizes a crossover from the region of an ultraviolet fixed point in the infinite past to an infrared fixed point in…
Phantom cosmology allows to account for dynamics and matter content of the universe tracing back the evolution to the inflationary epoch, considering the transition to the non-phantom standard cosmology (radiation/matter dominated eras) and…