Related papers: Comparative Quantum Cosmology: Causality, Singular…
I examine two cosmological scenarios in which the thermodynamic arrow of time points in opposite directions in the asymptotic past and future. The first scenario, suggested by Aguirre and Gratton, assumes that the two asymptotic regions are…
The theory of inflation is one of the fundamental and revolutionary developments of modern cosmology that became able to explain many issues of early universe in the context of the standard cosmological model (SCM). However, the initial…
Given the observed cosmic acceleration, Leonard Susskind has presented the following argument against the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary proposal for the quantum state of the universe: It should most likely lead to a nearly empty large de…
When quantum mechanics was developed in the '20s of the last century another revolution in physics was just starting. It began with the discovery that the universe is expanding. For a long time quantum mechanics and cosmology developed…
In this review, a number of approaches to superstring cosmology which make use of key features which distinguish string theory from point particle theories are discussed, with particular emphasis on emergent scenarios. One motivation for…
In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review…
Invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics (2nd edition), providing an overview over some main ideas and results in quantum cosmology. Key points: Canonical quantisation of homogeneous, isotropic cosmology; discussion…
On the one hand, inflation is an extremely convincing scenario: it solves most cosmological paradoxes and generates fluctuations that became the seeds for the growth of structures. It, however, suffers from a "naturalness" problem:…
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…
We wish to demonstrate how the presence of a dynamic cosmological parameter, plus a model of the universe as a quantum computer can be combined to give us a picture of early universe inflationary physics which is quite non linear, with a…
In light of the recent observational data coming from the sky we have two significant directions in the field of theoretical cosmology recently. First, we are now able to make use of present observations, such as the Planck and BICEP2 data,…
Cosmology appears as the most promising way to test and constrain quantum gravity theories. Loop quantum gravity is among the most advanced attempts to perform a non-perturbative quantization of general relativity. Its cosmological…
We propose a cosmological scenario which describes the evolution history of the universe based on the particle creation and holographic equipartition. The model attempts to solve the inflation of the early universe and the accelerated…
We propose a new four-parameter entropy function that generalizes the Tsallis, R\'{e}nyi, Barrow, Sharma-Mittal, Kaniadakis and Loop Quantum Gravity entropies for suitable limits of the parameters. Consequently, we address the early and…
For many years, the most active area of quantum cosmology has been the issue of choosing boundary conditions for the wave function of a universe. Recently, loop quantum cosmology, which is obtained from loop quantum gravity, has shed new…
Ancient origins of a modern anthropic argument against cosmologies involving infinite series of past events are considered. It is shown that this argument - which in modern times has been put forward by distinguished cosmologists like Paul…
This chapter provides a review of the frameworks developed for cosmological perturbation theory in loop quantum cosmology, and applications to various models of the early universe including inflation, ekpyrosis and the matter bounce, with…
The first part of this paper contains a brief description of the beginnings of modern cosmology, which, the author will argue, was most likely born in the Year 1912. Some of the pieces of evidence presented here have emerged from recent…
This is an introductory set of lecture notes on quantum cosmology, given in 1995 to an audience with interests ranging from astronomy to particle physics. Topics covered: 1. Introduction: 1.1 Quantum cosmology and quantum gravity; 1.2 A…
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.…