Related papers: Dark Energy, Inflation and Extra Dimensions
We identify troubling cases of so-called `permanent underdetermination' in both dark energy and inflationary cosmology. We bring to bear (a) a taxonomy of possible responses to underdetermination, and (b) an understanding of both dark…
In recent years different explanations are provided for both an inflation and a recent acceleration in the expansion of the universe. In this Letter we show that a model of physical interest is the modification of general relativity with a…
It has been suggested that the dark energy density \rho_v ~ 10^{-12} eV^4 in the universe is associated with a metastable (false) vacuum, while the true vacuum has a vanishing cosmological constant. By including supergravity corrections we…
In a universe dominated by a small cosmological constant or by eternal dark energy with equation of state w < -1/3, observers are surrounded by event horizons. The horizons limit how much of the universe the observers can ever access. We…
If the inflationary phase lasted longer than the minimal period, the length scales observed today originate from modes that were smaller than the Planck length during inflation. It was recently argued that this "trans-Planckian problem" can…
We study cosmology of the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in ten dimensions with a quartic term in the Yang-Mills field strength. We obtain analytically a class of cosmological solutions in which the extra dimensions are static and the scale…
Late-time cosmology in the extended cuscuton theory is studied, in which gravity is modified while one still has no extra dynamical degrees of freedom other than two tensor modes. We present a simple example admitting analytic solutions for…
Perhaps the deepest mystery of our accelerating Universe in expansion is the existence of a tiny and rigid cosmological constant, $\Lambda$. Its size is many orders of magnitude below the expected one in the standard model of particle…
In order to solve the fine-tuning problem of the cosmological constant, we propose a simple model with the vacuum energy non-minimally coupled to the inflaton field. In this model, the vacuum energy decays to the inflaton during…
A web of interlocking observations has established that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up and not slowing, revealing the presence of some form of repulsive gravity. Within the context of general relativity the cause of cosmic…
We consider the evolution of traversable wormhole geometries in the inflationary, radiation -- and matter -- dominated eras, and dynamic wormholes with a traceless energy-momentum tensor (EMT), within the recently proposed {\it pole dark…
In simple inflationary cosmological scenarios the near-exponential growth can be followed by a long period in which the Universe is dominated by the oscillating inflaton condensate. The condensate is initially almost homogeneous, but…
Out of the four components of the electromagnetic field, Maxwell's theory only contains two physical degrees of freedom. However, in an expanding universe, consistently eliminating one of the "unphysical" states in the covariant…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
It is shown that dark energy can be obtained from the interplay of the Higgs boson and the inflaton. A key element is the realization that electroweak symmetry breaking can trigger a second phase of rolling of the inflaton, which, when…
We investigate the constraints on cosmological parameters especially for EoS of dark energy, inflationary parameters, neutrino mass and curvature of universe using simulated Planck data. Firstly we determine cosmological parameters with…
We show that the latest empirical constraints on cosmology, from a combination of DESI, CMB and supernova data, can be accounted for if a small component of dark matter has an evolving and oscillating equation of state within $-1<w<1$. From…
An outgrowth of the idea of inflation is advanced. In the inflation regime, the singularity condition is broken. Equations which govern inflation are invariant under time reversal, so that they describe deflation as well. Those two…
Kination dominated quintessence models of dark energy have the intriguing feature that the relic abundance of thermal cold dark matter can be significantly enhanced compared to the predictions from standard cosmology. Previous treatments of…
We argue that many future-eternal inflating spacetimes are likely to violate the weak energy condition. It is possible that such spacetimes may not enforce any of the known averaged conditions either. If this is indeed the case, it may open…