Related papers: The warm inflationary universe
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
We study a class of non-local, action-based, and purely gravitational models. These models seek to describe a cosmology in which inflation is driven by a large, bare cosmological constant that is screened by the self-gravitation between the…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
The notion of inflation (past or present) in standard cosmological models is shown to be a consequence of a sufficiently high second law entropy production from the internal heating of the universal expansion. The longitudinal viscous…
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.…
The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
This article discusses density perturbations in inflationary models, offering a pedagogical description of how these perturbations are generated by quantum fluctuations in the early universe. A key feature of inflation is that that rapid…
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
It is commonly believed that our Universe has experienced two different stages of accelerated expansion. The early stage is known as inflation and the current acceleration is driven by dark energy. Observing inflation and dark energy…
In the warm inflation scenario, the early cosmic acceleration is driven by the inflaton coupled to thermal fields, decaying into radiation and leaving a hot universe populated by relativistic particles after the end of inflation. The…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
The inflationary paradigm provides a robust description of the peculiar initial conditions which are required for the success of the Hot Big Bang model of cosmology, as well as of the recent precision measurements of temperature…
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…
Observations of the cosmic microwave sky are revealing the primordial non-uniformities from which all structure in the Universe grew. The only known physical mechanism for generating the inhomogeneities we see involves the amplification of…
These lectures cover the basics of inflationary models for the early universe, concentrating particularly on the generation of density fluctuations from scalar-field dynamics. The subsequent gravitational dynamics of these fluctuations in…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenges-developing a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe and identifying the…