Related papers: Lectures on Cosmic Inflation and its Potential Str…
Informed by a quantum information perspective, we interpret cosmological expansion of space as growing entanglement between underlying degrees of freedom. In particular, we focus on inflationary cosmology, which, while being a successful…
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…
In this thesis, consisting of two main parts, we study observational signatures of cosmic (super)strings in the context of D-brane inflation and properties of scalar perturbations on generic homogeneous inflating backgrounds. In the first…
Cosmologists have embraced a particular ad hoc formula for the primordial power spectrum from inflation for universes with $\Omega_0 < 1$. However, the so-called ``Open Inflation'' models, which are attracting renewed interest in the…
The pre-big-bang cosmology inspired by superstring theories has been suggested as an alternative to slow-roll inflation. We analyze, in both the Jordan and Einstein frames, the effect of spatial curvature on this scenario and show that too…
Modern cosmology has created a tight link between particle physics / field theory and a wealth of new observational data on the structure of the Universe. These lecture notes focus on some of the most important aspects concerning the…
These notes form an introduction to cosmology with special emphasis on large scale structure, the cmb anisotropy and inflation. In some places a basic familiarity with particle physics is assumed, but otherwise no special knowledge is…
After a pedagogical review of elementary cosmology, I go on to discuss some obstacles to obtaining inflationary or accelerating universes in M/String Theory. In particular, I give an account of an old No-Go Theorem to this effect. I then…
Closed string tachyon condensation in spacetime generates potentials on the worldsheet that model two-dimensional inflationary cosmology. These models illustrate and elucidate a variety of aspects of inflation, in particular the generation…
Alan Guth introduced cosmologists to inflation at the 1980 Texas Symposium. Since, inflation has had almost as much impact on cosmology as the big-bang model itself. However, unlike the big-bang model, it has little observational support.…
Extended inflation is a promising new approach to implementing the inflationary universe scenario. This paper reviews recent advances including a new, more robust mechanism for ending extended inflation, a new prediction for the density…
In the framework of Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories (SUSY GUTs), the universe undergoes a cascade of symmetry breakings, during which topological defects can be formed. We address the question of the probability of cosmic string…
We investigate the impact of Coleman-Weinberg inflation on the stochastic gravity wave background spectrum emitted by intermediate scale cosmic strings. The string network is partially inflated and re-enters the horizon at later times after…
In these lectures I review the present status of the so-called Standard Cosmological Model, based on the hot Big Bang Theory and the Inflationary Paradigm. I will make special emphasis on the recent developments in observational cosmology,…
We obtain cosmological constraints on models of inflation which exhibit rapid roll solutions. Rapid roll attractors exist for potentials with large mass terms and are thus of interest for inflationary model building within string theory. We…
In this paper we point out that the spacetime uncertainty relation proposed for string theory has strong cosmological implications that can solve the flatness problem and the horizon problem without the need of inflation. We make minimal…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
In this paper, we analyze the inflationary cosmology using string field theory. This is done by using the zero level contribution from string field theory, which is a non-local tachyonic action. We will use the non-local Friedmann equations…
This is a pedagogical introduction to the basics of the cosmic string theory and also a review of the recent progress made with respect to the macrophysical predictions of the theory. Topics covered include, string formation and evolution,…
These lecture notes have been written for a short introductory course on the status of inflation after Planck and BICEP2, given at the Xth Modave School of Mathematical Physics. The first objective is to give an overview of the theory of…