Related papers: Alternatives to Cosmological Inflation
The results from Planck2015, when combined with earlier observations from WMAP, ACT, SPT and other experiments, were the first observations to disfavor the "classic" inflationary paradigm. To satisfy the observational constraints,…
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Many pedagogical introductions of cosmological inflation are effective due to the simplicity of the relevant equations. Here an analytic solution of the cosmological equations is presented and used as an example to discuss fundamental…
This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
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…
Current astronomical observations are successfully explained by the present cosmological paradigm based on the concordance model ($\Lambda_0$CDM + Inflation). However, such a scenario is composed of a heterogeneous mix of ingredients for…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
Discovered almost forty years ago, inflation has become the leading paradigm for the early universe. Originally invented to avoid the fine-tuning puzzles of the standard model of cosmology, the so-called hot Big Bang phase, inflation has…
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
Cosmological equations for homogeneous isotropic models filled by scalar fields and ultrarelativistic matter are investigated in the framework of gauge theories of gravity. Regular inflationary cosmological models of flat, closed and open…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
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…
It has recently been realized that many theories of physics beyond the Standard Model give rise to cosmological histories exhibiting extended epochs of cosmological stasis. During such epochs, the abundances of different energy components…
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…
Attempts to apply quantum collapse theories to Cosmology and cosmic inflation are reviewed. These attempts are motivated by the fact that the theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin suffers from the single outcome…
We describe several different regimes which are possible in inflationary cosmology. The simplest one is inflation without self-reproduction of the universe. In this scenario the universe is not stationary. The second regime, which exists in…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…