Related papers: Testing Inflation: A Bootstrap Approach

Recent results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have been called a corroboration, or even a confirmation, of inflation. Yet, the results include features that require, at least, a significant distortion of what is usually meant…

I give a brief review of the status of research on the nature of initial conditions required to obtain a period of cosmological inflation. It is shown that there is good evidence that in the case of large field models, the inflationary…

Anisotropic inflation is a model succeeded in explaining statistical anisotropy. Warm inflation is a model succeeded in providing a mechanism of reheating during inflation. We study anisotropic warm inflation focusing on the cosmic no-hair…

In this article we study closed inflationary universe models using the Gauss-Bonnet Brane. We determine and characterize the existence of a universe with $\Omega > 1$, with an appropriate period of inflation. We have found that this model…

If the spatial curvature of the universe is positive, then the curvature term will always dominate at early enough times in a slow-rolling inflationary epoch. This enhances inflationary effects and hence puts limits on the possible number…

The aim of this paper is to show, that the 'oscillating universe' is a viable alternative to inflation. We remind that this model provides a natural solution to the flatness or entropy and to the horizon problem of standard cosmology. We…

We summarize our work on a consistency condition for inflation in two-field cosmological models, in the regime of rapid turn and third-order slow roll. To ensure a sustained inflationary period of this type, one needs to satisfy a certain…

Damour and Mukhanov have recently devised circumstances in which inflation may continue during the oscillatory phase which ensues once the inflaton field reaches the minimum of its potential. We confirm the existence of this phenomenon by…

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…

There is very strong circumstantial evidence that there was an inflationary epoch very early in the history of the universe. In this lecture I will describe how we might be able to piece together some understanding of the dynamics during…

Recent developments in cosmology suggest that much of the universe is in a state of explosive, accelerated expansion, called inflation. We live in a "bubble" where inflation has ended, and other bubbles with diverse properties are…

In this paper we show that the dynamics associated with slow-roll models of inflation can be investigated through a method called deformation procedure. Using the latter, we explicitly derive an expression linking two slow-roll inflationary…

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…

Eternal inflation, the idea that there is always a part of the universe that is expanding exponentially, is a frequent feature of inflationary models. It has been argued that eternal inflation requires the violation of energy conditions,…

A long period of inflation can be triggered when the inflaton is held up on the top of a steep potential by the infrared end of a warped space. We first study the field theory description of such a model. We then embed it in the flux…

In spite of the strong observational evidence suggesting a period of rapid expansion in the early universe, the identity of the inflaton field that drove this expansion remains elusive. Many inflaton candidate particles (both known and…

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.…

We analyze a distinctive mechanism for inflation in which particle production slows down a scalar field on a steep potential, and show how it descends from angular moduli in string compactifications. The analysis of density perturbations --…

It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the…

If our universe underwent inflation, its entropy during the inflationary phase was substantially lower than it is today. Because a low-entropy state is less likely to be chosen randomly than a high-entropy one, inflation is unlikely to…