Related papers: On the Initial Conditions in New Ekpyrotic Cosmolo…
In this paper, we present a new scenario of the early Universe that contains a pre big bang Ekpyrotic phase. By combining this with a ghost condensate, the theory explicitly violates the null energy condition without developing any…
Ekpyrotic bouncing cosmologies have been proposed as alternatives to inflation. In these scenarios, the universe is smoothed and flattened during a period of slow contraction preceding the bounce while quantum fluctuations generate nearly…
Ekpyrotic models and their cyclic extensions solve the standard cosmological flatness, horizon and homogeneity puzzles by postulating a slowly contracting phase of the universe prior to the big bang. This ekpyrotic phase also manages to…
We consider the construction of nonsingular Pre-Big-Bang and Ekpyrotic type cosmological models realized by the addition to the action of specific higher-order terms stemming from quantum corrections. We study models involving general…
In the standard entropic mechanism adopted in the simple Ekpyrotic models to generate the nearly scale-invariant and Gaussian primordial perturbation, the entropy direction is tachyonically unstable. In this paper, we consider the stable…
We present a nonsingular bouncing cosmology using single scalar field matter with non-trivial potential and non-standard kinetic term. The potential sources a dynamical attractor solution with Ekpyrotic contraction which washes out small…
For the Ekpyrotic universe, the entropic mechanisms with minimal couplings, which have been used to generate nearly scale invariant primordial perturbations, was proved to be unstable. To overcome this difficulty, some non-minimal coupling…
We consider the ekpyrotic paradigm in the context of loop quantum cosmology. In loop quantum cosmology the classical big-bang singularity is resolved due to quantum gravity effects, and so the contracting ekpyrotic branch of the universe…
The universe can be made flat and smooth by undergoing a phase of ultra-slow (ekpyrotic) contraction, a condition achievable with a single, canonical scalar field and conventional general relativity. It has been argued, though, that…
New Ekpyrotic Cosmology is an alternative scenario of the early universe which relies on a phase of slow contraction before the big bang. We calculate the 3-point and 4-point correlation functions of primordial density perturbations and…
Ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies provide theories of the very early and of the very late universe. In these models, the big bang is described as a collision of branes - and thus the big bang is not the beginning of time. Before the big…
We analyze the evolution of cosmological perturbations in the cyclic model, paying particular attention to their behavior and interplay over multiple cycles. Our key results are: (1) galaxies and large scale structure present in one cycle…
The scalar field is considered to have dominated the early Universe. One subtle yet crucial requirement of this assumption is that the solution must be highly stable, i.e., indifferent to any initial conditions because there are no favored…
We present a novel theory of the very early universe which addresses the traditional horizon and flatness problems of big bang cosmology and predicts a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations. Unlike inflation, this scenario requires no…
We consider a simple model of cosmological collapse driven by canonical fields with exponential potentials. We generalise the two-field ekpyrotic collapse to consider non-orthogonal or tilted potentials and give the general condition for…
There is increasing evidence from string theory that effective field theories are only reliable over approximately sub-Planckian field excursions. The two most promising effective models for early universe cosmology, inflation and…
The entropic mechanism for producing nearly scale-invariant density perturbations in a contracting ekpyrotic universe relies on having an unstable scalar potential. Here we develop a variant of this mechanism (recently proposed by Qiu, Gao…
The no-boundary proposal provides a compelling theory for the initial conditions of our universe. We study the implications of such initial conditions for ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies. These cosmologies allow for the existence of a new…
We propose a mechanism borrowed from string theory which yields a non-singular transition from a phase of Ekpyrotic contraction to the expanding phase of Standard Big Bang cosmology. The same mechanism converts the initial vacuum spectrum…
In the ekpyrotic scenario the Universe is initially collapsing, the energy density coming from a scalar field with a negative exponential potential. On the basis of a calculation ignoring the gravitational back-reaction the authors of the…