Related papers: Cosmological correlation functions in scalar and v…
The effect of spatial curvature on primordial perturbations is controlled by $ \Omega_{K,0}/c_{s}^{2} $, where $ \Omega_{K,0} $ is today's fractional density of spatial curvature and $ c_{s} $ is the speed of sound during inflation. Here we…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
Inflationary homogeneous isotropic cosmological models filled by scalar fields and ultrarelativistic matter are examined in the framework of gauge theories of gravitation. By using quadratic scalar field potential numerical analysis of…
Inflationary predictions for the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation have been verified to an excellent degree, leaving many models compatible with observations. In this thesis we studied third-order correlations, that might allow…
We derive the implications for anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background following from a model of inflation in which a bare cosmological constant is gradually screened by an infrared process in quantum gravity. The model predicts…
In a series of five lectures I review inflationary cosmology. I begin with a description of the initial conditions problems of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology and then explain how inflation, an early period of accelerated…
We consider a primordial SU(2) vector multiplet during inflation in models where quantum fluctuations of vector fields are involved in producing the curvature perturbation. Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to models populated by…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…
In a recent paper [17], we studied the evolution of the background geometry and scalar perturbations in an inflationary, spatially closed Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model having constant positive spatial curvature and…
The presence of cosmological perturbations affects the background metric and matter configuration in which the perturbations propagate. This effect, studied a long time ago for gravitational waves, also is operational for scalar…
The standard big bang cosmological model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions are summarized. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with…
We study the asymmetric primordial fluctuations in a model of inflation in which translational invariance is broken by a domain wall. We calculate the corrections to the power spectrum of curvature perturbations; they are anisotropic and…
We investigate the scalar mode of perturbation of super inflation in the version of loop quantum cosmology in which the gauge invariant holonomy corrections are considered. Given a background solution, we calculate the power spectrum of the…
For most initial conditions, cosmologically relevant physical modes were trans-planckian at the bounce time, often by many magnitude orders. We improve the usual loop quantum cosmology calculation of the primordial power spectra -- in the…
For icosahedral inflation, we compute the tensor modes' two-point function in the presence of higher derivative corrections, and show that in general this features anisotropies that are aligned with the underlying icosahedral structure. The…
It is proposed that if quantum states of space-time are coherent on null surfaces, holographic Planck-scale fluctuations of inflationary horizons dominate the formation of primordial scalar curvature perturbations. It is shown that the…
Measurements of CMB temperature fluctuations by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) indicate that the fluctuation amplitude in one half of the sky differs from the amplitude in the other half. We show that such an asymmetry…
We study a cosmological scenario in which inflation is preceded by a bounce. In this scenario, the primordial singularity, one of the major shortcomings of inflation, is replaced by a non-singular bounce, prior to which the universe…
We study quantum fluctuations of a free massless scalar field during inflation in the presence of a point, line, or plane defect such as a black hole, cosmic string, or domain wall, using a perturbative expansion in powers of small defect…
The shift-symmetric coupling of a pseudo-scalar particle driving inflation to gauge fields provides a unique way of probing cosmic inflation. We show for an SU(2) gauge group how a classical isotropic background gauge field develops from…