Related papers: The warm inflationary universe
Small fluctuations around homogeneous and isotropic expanding backgrounds are the main object of study in cosmology. Their origin and evolution is sensitive to the physical processes that happen during inflation and in the late Universe. As…
These four lectures cover four topics in modern cosmology: the cosmological constant, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, and cosmology as a probe of physics at the Planck scale. The underlying theme is that cosmology gives us a…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenge---a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe. I then discuss the motivations…
The early Universe inflation is well known as a promising theory to explain the origin of large scale structure of the Universe, a causal theory for the origin of primordial density fluctuations which may explain the observed density…
In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics will be made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of these links. Our…
The very basics of cosmological inflation are discussed. We derive the equations of motion for the inflaton field, introduce the slow-roll parameters, and present the computation of the inflationary perturbations and their connection to the…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
In this review I consider several different issues related to inflation. I will begin with the wave function of the Universe. This issue is pretty old, but recently there were some new insights based on the theory of the self-reproducing…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
The cosmological model best capable of fitting current observational data features two separate epochs during which the Universe is accelerating. During the earliest stages of the Universe, such acceleration is known as cosmological…
After a brief summary of general relativity and cosmology, we present the basic concepts underlying inflation, the currently best motivated models for the early Universe. We describe the simplest inflation models, based on a single scalar…
According to the inflationary theory of cosmology, most elementary particles in the current universe were created during a period of reheating after inflation. In this work we self-consistently couple the Einstein-inflaton equations to a…
The warm inflation scenario is an alternative mechanism which can explain the isotropic and homogeneous Universe which we are living in. In this work I extend a previously introduced formalism, without the restriction of slow - roll regime.…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
A dissipative mechanism is presented, which emerges in generic interacting quantum field systems and which leads to robust warm inflation. An explicit example is considered, where using typical parameter values, it is shown that…
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of…
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…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role allowing precise determination of various parameters of the `standard' cosmological model. The expectation of the paradigm of inflation and…
The early cosmic inflation, when taken along with the recent observations that the universe is currently dominated by a low density vacuum energy, leads to at least two potential problems which modern cosmology must address. First, there is…