Related papers: Lectures on Cosmic Inflation and its Potential Str…
We review recent trends on inflationary dynamics in the context of viable modified gravity theories. After providing a general overview of the inflationary paradigm emphasizing on what problems of hot Big Bang theory inflation solves, and a…
In these lectures, after a short introduction to cosmology, we discuss the supergravity embedding of higher curvature models of inflation. The supergravity description of such models is presented for the two different formulations of…
We describe a scenario for inflation in the framework of non-critical string theory, which does not employ an inflaton field. There is an exponential expansion of the volume of the Universe, induced by enormous entropy production in the…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
We briefly discuss constraints on supersymmetric hybrid inflation models and examine the consistency of brane inflation models. We then address the implications for inflationary scenarios resulting from the strong constraints on the cosmic…
We discuss relationship between inflation and various models of production of density inhomogeneities due to strings, global monopoles, textures and other topological and non-topological defects. Neither of these models leads to a…
This paper is intended to offer a pedagogical treatment of cosmological modeling and inflationary cosmology. In recent years, inflation has become accepted as a standard scenario making predictions that are testable by observations of the…
We point out some of the outstanding challenges for embedding inflationary cosmology within string theory studying the process of reheating for models where the inflaton is a closed string mode parameterising the size of an internal cycle…
We consider the coupling of racetrack inflation to matter fields as realised in the D3/D7 brane system. In particular, we investigate the possibility of cosmic string formation in this system. We find that string formation before or at the…
In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the…
These lecture notes are based on those presented at the Theoretical Aspects of Astroparticle Physics, Cosmology and Gravitation School at the Galileo Galilee Institute in Florence in 2021, https://agenda.infn.it/event/24368/. They aim to…
We investigate a new way of realizing a period of cosmological inflation in the context of brane gas cosmology. It is argued that a gas of co-dimension one branes, out of thermal equilibrium with the rest of the matter, has an equation of…
In this lecture I give a pedagogical introduction to inflationary cosmology with a special focus on the quantum generation of cosmological perturbations.
We examine a non-Abelian SUSY $SU(2) \times U(1)$ gauge theory and a SUSY U(1) theory originally used to investigate the microphysics of cosmic strings in supersymmetric theories. We show that both theories automatically include hybrid…
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
We demonstrate an inflationary solution to the cosmological horizon problem during the Hagedorn regime in the early universe. Here the observable universe is confined to three spatial dimensions (a three-brane) embedded in higher…
We demonstrate an inflationary solution to the cosmological horizon problem during the Hagedorn regime in the early universe. Here the observable universe is confined to three spatial dimensions (a three-brane) embedded in higher…
Focus of these lectures is the challenge of explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. The interplay between quantum field theory and classical general relativity has given rise to several interesting cosmological models which…
We present a study of open inflation cosmological scenarios in which cosmic strings form betwen the two inflationary epochs. It is shown that in these models strings are stretched outside the horizon due to the inflationary expansion but…
We present an overview of inflationary models derived from string theory focusing mostly on closed string moduli as inflatons. After a detailed discussion of the eta-problem and different approaches to address it, we describe possible ways…