Related papers: Proliferation of the Phoenix Universe
We discuss three candidate scenarios which seem to allow the possibility that the universe could have existed forever with no initial singularity: eternal infation, cyclic evolution, and the emergent universe. The first two of these…
The early universe provides an opportunity for quantum gravity to connect to observation by explaining the large-scale structure of the Universe. In the group field theory (GFT) approach, a macroscopic universe is described as a GFT…
It is speculated how dark energy in a brane world can help reconcile an infinitely cyclic cosmology with the second law of thermodynamics. A cyclic cosmology is described, in which dark energy leads to a turnaround at a time, extremely…
The idea of a multiverse -- an ensemble of universes -- has received increasing attention in cosmology, both as the outcome of the originating process that generated our own universe, and as an explanation for why our universe appears to be…
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
The concordance model of cosmology predicts a universe which finishes in a finite amount of conformal time at a future conformal boundary. We show that for particular cases we study, the background variables and perturbations may be…
We discuss a cosmological model where the universe shrinks rather than expands during the radiation and matter dominated periods. Instead, the Planck mass and all particle masses grow exponentially, with the size of atoms shrinking…
In homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology, the topology of the universe determines its ultimate fate. If the Weak Energy Condition is satisfied, open and flat universes must expand forever, while closed cosmologies…
We study the impact of the expansion of the universe on a broad class of objects, including black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and others. Using metrics that incorporate primordial inhomogeneities, the effects of a hypothetical…
We investigate cyclic and singularity-free evolutions in a universe governed by Lagrange-multiplier modified gravity, either in scalar-field cosmology, as well as in $f(R)$ one. In the scalar case, cyclicity can be induced by a suitably…
In order to draw out the essential behavior of the universe, investigations of early universe cosmology often reduce the complex system to a simple integrable system. Inflationary models are of this kind as they focus on simple scalar field…
An introduction to modern theories for the origin of structure in the Universe is given. After a brief review of the growth of cosmological perturbations in an expanding Universe and a summary of some important observational results, the…
During the past two decades, cosmologists turned to particle physics in order to explore the physics of the very early Universe. The main link between the physics of the smallest and largest structures in the Universe is the idea of…
Research over the past 25 years has led to the view that the rich tapestry of present-day cosmic structure arose during the first instants of creation, where weak ripples were imposed on the otherwise uniform and rapidly expanding…
There is a formal analogy between the evolution of the universe, when this is seen as a trajectory in the minisuperspace, and the worldline followed by a test particle in a curved spacetime. The analogy can be extended to the quantum realm,…
In the contracting phase with w\simeq 0, the scale invariant spectrum of curvature perturbation is given by the increasing mode of metric perturbation. In this paper, it is found that if the contracting phase with w\simeq 0 is included in…
We consider the proposition that multiple universes exist by reviewing the various manifestations. In recent years, this idea has been elevated from science fiction and introduced in separate guises as an explanation for coincidence…
In an undulant universe, cosmic expansion is characterized by alternating periods of acceleration and deceleration. We examine cosmologies in which the dark-energy equation of state varies periodically with the number of e-foldings of the…
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
The transformation of organic molecules into the simplest self-replicating living system,a microorganism, is accomplished from a unique event or rare events that occurred early in the Universe. The subsequent dispersal on cosmic scales and…