Related papers: On the Initial Conditions in New Ekpyrotic Cosmolo…
Cosmological perturbation theory fails in the new ekpyrotic and cyclic ekpyrotic scenarios, before the scale factor of the Universe reaches zero. As a result, a recently-proposed recipe for evolving the curvature perturbation through the…
We propose a mechanism for solving the horizon and entropy problems of standard cosmology which does not make use of cosmological inflation. Crucial ingredients of our scenario are brane gases, extra dimensions, and a confining potential…
This is a short summary of a project to construct a first principles cosmology of the Standard Model epoch, the period starting shortly before the electro-weak transition. The cosmology is derived from a simple initial state entirely within…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
A weakly coupled scalar field $\Phi$ with a simple exponential potential $V=M_P^4\exp(-\lambda\Phi/M_P)$ where $M_P$ is the reduced Planck mass, and $\lambda > 2$, has an attractor solution in a radiation or matter dominated universe in…
We develop new modified cosmological scenarios by applying the first law of thermodynamics at the Universe horizon, utilizing a new entropic functional that generalizes the standard Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy. In particular, starting…
We propose a simple scenario which explains why our Universe appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic. We use the Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama (ECKS) theory of gravity which naturally extends general relativity to include the spin…
We consider a more general initial condition satisfying the minimal uncertainty relationship. We calculate the power spectrum of a simple model in inflationary cosmology. The results depend on perturbations generated below a fundamental…
In a recent paper arXiv:0910.2230, Khoury and Steinhardt proposed a way to generate adiabatic cosmological perturbations with a nearly flat spectrum in a contracting Universe. To produce these perturbations they used a regime in which the…
In this paper we provide approximate analytical analysis of stability of nonsingular inflationary chaotic-type cosmological models. Initial conditions for nonsingular solutions at the bounce correspond to dominance of potential part of the…
In the paper ``Density perturbations in the ekpyrotic scenario'', it is argued that the expected spectrum of primordial perturbations should be scale invariant in this scenario. Here we show that, contrary to what is claimed in that paper,…
We have recently proposed a simple relativistic theory which reduces to modified Newtonian dynamics for the weak-field quasistatic situations applied to galaxies, and to cosmological behavior as in the $\Lambda$CDM model, yielding a…
We explore the possibility of emergent cosmology using the effective potential formalism. We discover new models of emergent cosmology which satisfy the constraints posed by the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We demonstrate that, within…
Several scenarios have been proposed in which primordial perturbations could originate from quantum vacuum fluctuations in a phase corresponding to a collapse phase (in an Einstein frame) preceding the Big Bang. I briefly review three…
We present a new class of complex instantons in the context of ekpyrotic cosmological theories. These instantons, which satisfy the "no-boundary" boundary conditions, describe the emergence of a classical, contracting universe out of…
We will perform a detailed study of the matter-ekpyrotic bouncing scenario in Loop Quantum Cosmology using the methods of the dynamical systems theory. We will show that when the background is driven by a single scalar field, at very late…
We study a model for a non-singular cosmic bounce in N=1 supergravity, based on supergravity versions of the ghost condensate and cubic Galileon scalar field theories. The bounce is preceded by an ekpyrotic contracting phase which prevents…
The purpose of this work is to use a renormalized quantum scalar field to investigate very early cosmology, in the Planck era immediately following the big bang. Renormalization effects make the field potential dependent on length scale,…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
We consider a simple cosmological model that includes a long ekpyrotic contraction stage and smooth bounce after it. Ekpyrotic behavior is due to a scalar field with a negative exponential potential, whereas the Galileon field produces…