Related papers: Odds of observing the multiverse
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
We study pocket universes which have zero cosmological constant and non-trivial boundary topology. These arise from bubble collisions in eternal inflation. Using a simplified dust model of collisions we find that boundaries of any genus can…
We discuss how initial conditions for cosmological evolution can be defined in Loop Quantum Cosmology with massive scalar field and how the presence of the bounce influences the probability of inflation in this theory, compared with General…
Making observable predictions for cosmic inflation requires determining when the wavenumbers of astrophysical interest today exited the Hubble radius during the inflationary epoch. These instants are commonly evaluated using the slow-roll…
Even if nothing but a light Higgs is observed at the LHC, suggesting that the Standard Model is unmodified up to scales far above the weak scale, Higgs physics can yield surprises of fundamental significance for cosmology. As has long been…
Two extensions of ideas lying in the basis of the inflationary scenario of the early Universe and their effect on the large scale structure of the present-day Universe are discussed. The first of them is the possibility of fast phase…
A scale-invariant universe can have a period of accelerated expansion at early times: inflation. We use a frame-invariant approach to calculate inflationary observables in a scale invariant theory of gravity involving two scalar fields -…
Inflation models make specific predictions for a tensor-scalar-scalar three-point correlation, or bispectrum, between one gravitational-wave (tensor) mode and two density-perturbation (scalar) modes. This tensor-scalar-scalar correlation…
In this paper we put forward the idea that the comoving Hubble horizon undergoes multiple stages of contraction (a.k.a. inflationary phase) and expansion. The observable inflation, that produces the CMB anisotropies and generates primordial…
We show explicitly some exciting features of double-inflation: (i) it can often lead to strongly correlated adiabatic and entropy (isocurvature) power spectra. (ii) The two-field slow-roll consistency relations can be violated when the…
Eternal inflation is studied in the context of warm inflation. We focus on different tools to analyze the effects of dissipation and the presence of a thermal radiation bath on the fluctuation-dominated regime, for which the…
We study how the initial inhomogeneities of the spatial curvature affect the onset of inflation in the closed universe. We consider a cosmological model which contains a radiation and a cosmological constant. In order to treat 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…
We investigate the entanglement due to geometric corrections in particle creation during inflation. To do so, we propose a single-field inflationary scenario, nonminimally coupled to the scalar curvature of spacetime. We require particle…
The next decade will feature an abundance of novel cosmological data, while many fundamental questions about inflation remain. Given this, there is ample need for maximally efficient calculations, especially in non-standard scenarios for…
In this dissertation, we introduce a general way of modeling inflation in a framework that is independent of the exact nature of the inflationary potential. Because of the choice of our initial conditions and the continuity of the scale…
In some well-known scenarios of open-universe eternal inflation, developed by Vilenkin and co-workers, a large number of universes nucleate and thermalize within the eternally inflating mega-universe. According to the proposal, each…
A remarkable prediction of the Standard Model is that, in the absence of corrections lifting the energy density, the Higgs potential becomes negative at large field values. If the Higgs field samples this part of the potential during…
The detection of an oscillating pattern in the bispectrum of density perturbations could suggest the existence of a high-energy second minimum in the Higgs potential. If the Higgs field resided in this new minimum during inflation and was…
We have investigated the generality of inflation (the probability of inflation in other words) in closed FRW models for a wide class of quintessence potentials. It is shown that inflation is not suppressed for most of them and for a wide…