Related papers: Inflation with a Weyl term, or ghosts at work
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…
These lectures are intended to give a pedagogical introduction to the main current picture of the very early universe. After elementary reviews of general relativity and of the standard Big Bang model, the following subjects are discussed:…
We consider an extension of Weyl geometry with the most general connection linearly determined by a vector field. We discuss some of the geometrical properties within this framework and then we construct gravitational theories leading to an…
We further clarify how scalar metric perturbations are amplified in an inflationary cosmology. We first construct a simple, analytic model of an inflationary cosmology in which the expansion scale factor evolves continuously from an…
Equations for cosmological evolution are formulated in a Weyl invariant formalism to take into account possible Weyl anomalies. Near two dimensions, the renormalized cosmological term leads to a nonlocal energy-momentum tensor and a slowly…
A number of scalar field models proposed as alternatives to the standard inflationary scenario involve contracting phases which precede the universe's present phase of expansion. An important question concerning such models is whether there…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
In this paper we investigate the perturbation theory of the asymptotically safe inflation and we find that all modes of gravitational waves perturbation become ghosts in order to achieve a large enough number of e-folds. Formally we can…
We present a model of inflation where the inflaton is accommodated as a phantom field which exhibits an initial transient pole behavior and then decays into a quintessence field which is responsible for a radiation era. We must stress that…
The inflationary scenarios suggested by the duality properties of string cosmology in the Brans-Dicke (or String) frame are shown to correspond to accelerated contraction (deflation) when Weyl-transformed to the Einstein frame. We point out…
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…
Previously defined covariant and gauge-invariant perturbation variables, representing, e.g., the fractional spatial energy density gradient on hypersurfaces of constant expansion, are used to simplify the linear perturbation analysis of a…
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…
It is well known that in manifestly Lorentz invariant theories with nontrivial kinetic terms, perturbations around some classical backgrounds can travel faster than light. These exotic "supersonic" models may have interesting consequences…
We study the cosmology of bimetric theory with a composite matter coupling. We find two possible branches of background evolution. We investigate the question of stability of cosmological perturbations. For the tensor and vector…
We show that there are inflationary models for which perturbations in the energy momentum tensor, which are of second order in the scalar field, cannot be neglected. We first specify the conditions under which the usual first order…
Scalar density cosmological perturbations, spectral indices and reheating in a chaotic inflationary universe model, in which a higher derivative term is added, are investigated. This term is supposed to play an important role in the early…
In the spirit of Galileon inflation and by considering some sorts of non-canonical kinetic terms in the action, we realize a stage of super-inflation leading to a blue-tilted tensor perturbation. We show also that addition of Galileon-like…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
In a previous paper we proposed a new approach to the beginning of inflation -- a lingering universe. The universe begins in a lingering state with a nearly vanishing Hubble parameter. This calls into question the absolute age of the…