Related papers: Universes out of almost empty space
We study the emergence of anisotropic (Bianchi IX) inflationary universes with no-boundary conditions in the path integral approach to quantum gravity. In contrast to previous work, we find no evidence for any limit to how large the…
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a ``steady-state''…
We study oscillatory universes within the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology. We make a comparative study of flat and positively curved universes sourced by scalar fields with either positive or negative potentials. We investigate how…
We address the question of universes inside a $\Lambda$ black hole which is described by a spherically symmetric globally regular solution to the Einstein equations with a variable cosmological term $\Lambda_{\mu\nu}$, asymptotically…
Observational cosmology is in its "golden age" with a vast amount of recent data on the distribution of matter and light in the universe. This data can be used to probe theories of the very early universe. It is small amplitude cosmological…
Recent high precision data by WMAP and SDSS have provided strong evidence to suggest that the universe is nearly flat. They are also making it possible to probe the topology of the universe. Motivated by these results, we have recently…
We consider a universe with a bulk viscous cosmic fluid, in a flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker geometry. We derive the conditions for the existence of inflation, and those which at the same time prevent the occurrence of…
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
I conjecture that a flat 10D compact universe emerged out of nothing (By ``nothing'' I mean no notion of space and time) with all it's symmetries intact: Poincare invariance, conformal invariance and supersymmetry, it's massless moduli…
I present a very simplistic toy model for the inflationary paradigm where the size of the universe undergoes a period of exponential growth. The basic assumption I make use of is that black holes might have a quantized area (mass) spectrum…
We argue that an understanding of the Arrow of Time is urgently required if recent string-theoretic ideas about cosmology are to be made to function. In the string Landscape, the nucleation of baby universes is postulated to "populate" the…
The great emptiness is a possible beginning of the Universe in the infinite past of physical time. For the epoch of great emptiness particles are extremely rare and effectively massless. Only expectation values of fields and average…
A period of rapidly accelerating expansion is expected in the early Universe implemented by a scalar field slowly rolling down along an asymptotically flat potential preferred by the current data. In this paper, we point out that this…
We consider the description of cosmological dynamics from the onset of inflation by a perfect fluid whose parameters must be consistent with the strength of the enhanced quantum loop effects that can arise during inflation. The source of…
In hep-th/0506040 we discussed a classically constrained model of gravity. This theory contains known solutions of General Relativity (GR), and admits solutions that are absent in GR. Here we study cosmological implications of some of these…
The theory of the inflationary multiverse changes the way we think about our place in the world. According to its most popular version, our world may consist of infinitely many exponentially large parts, exhibiting different sets of…
We propose a model for early universe cosmology without the need for fundamental scalar fields. Cosmic acceleration and phenomenologically viable reheating of the universe results from a series of energy transitions, where during each…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
We propose a new class of inflationary solutions to the standard cosmological problems (horizon, flatness, monopole,...), based on a modification of old inflation. These models do not require a potential which satisfies the normal…
We recently formulated a model of the universe based on an underlying W3-symmetry. It allows the creation of the universe from nothing and the creation of baby universes and wormholes for spacetimes of dimension 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10. Here we…