Related papers: WMAPping the Inflationary Universe
I summarize the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are described. Although the infinity of pocket universes produced by…
In a series of five lectures I review inflationary cosmology. I begin with a description of the initial conditions problems of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology and then explain how inflation, an early period of accelerated…
Eternal inflation is a seemingly generic consequence of theories that give rise to accelerated expansion of the universe and possess multiple vacuum states. Making predictions in an eternally inflating universe is notoriously difficult…
We are on the verge of the first precision testing of the inflationary cosmology as a model for the origin of structure in the Universe. I review the key predictions of inflation which can be used as observational tests, in the sense of…
We investigate the possible effect of cosmological-constant type dark energy during the inflation period of the early universe. This is accommodated by a new dispersion relation in de Sitter space. The modified inflation model of a…
The inflationary paradigm, although very successful phenomenologically, suffers from several conceptual problems which motivate the search for alternative scenarios of early universe cosmology. Here, two possible alternatives will be…
In this paper, we consider a nonminimal coupling model between gravity and nonlinear electrodynamics with cosmological constant. This cosmological model is designed to account for both the inflationary epoch of the early universe and the…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
A scenario of the inflaton evolution from cosmic inflation and matter creation to dark matter/dark energy today is presented. To start with, a model of the inflationary phase of the inflaton is introduced. The inflaton rolls down a hilltop…
A new idea of deriving a cosmological term from an underlying theory has been proposed in order to explain the expansion history of the universe. We obtain the scale factor with this derived cosmological term and demonstrate that it…
The inflationary scenario is not the only paradigm of early universe cosmology which is consistent with current observations. General criteria will be presented which any successful early universe model must satisfy. Various ways, including…
This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its…
Since this is a meeting on inflation the title of this talk should probably have been ``The cosmos as a lab for inflation''. I will illustrate how, by combining WMAP observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with smaller scales…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…
These lectures provide an introductory review of big bang cosmology. I discuss the expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, summarizing the observational evidence which has led to its adoption as the `standard' cosmological model and…
In this short review, the predictions of inflation are presented and compared to the most recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy. It is argued that inflation is compatible with these observations but that…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
We explore a cosmological model in which the time scale is variable with the expansion of the universe and the effective spacetime is driven by the inflaton field. An example is considered and their predictions are contrasted between Planck…