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Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
Inflationary models, especially those with plateau-type potentials, are consistent with the cosmological data, but inflation itself does not resolve the initial singularity. This singularity is resolved, for example, by the idea of the…
Cosmic inflation is envisioned as the ``most likely'' start for the observed universe. To give substance to this claim, a framework is needed in which inflation can compete with other scenarios and the relative likelihood of all scenarios…
After decades of successful hot big-bang paradigm, Cosmology still lacks a framework in which the early inflationary phase of the universe smoothly matches the radiation epoch and evolves to the present `quasi' de Sitter spacetime. No less…
If our universe underwent inflation, its entropy during the inflationary phase was substantially lower than it is today. Because a low-entropy state is less likely to be chosen randomly than a high-entropy one, inflation is unlikely to…
The aim of this paper is to show, that the 'oscillating universe' is a viable alternative to inflation. We remind that this model provides a natural solution to the flatness or entropy and to the horizon problem of standard cosmology. We…
The evolution of a scalar field is explored taking into account the presence of a background fluid in a positively curved Universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Though the mechanism that provides the initial conditions for…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…
There exists the "entropy problem" of the early universe, that is, why did the universe begin with an extremely low entropy and how did it evolve into such high entropy at late times? It has been long believed that inflation cannot be the…
We contrast the possibility of inflation starting a) from the universe's inception or b) from an earlier non-inflationary state. Neither case is ideal since a) assumes quantum mechanical reasoning is straightforwardly applicable to the…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
A model of a universe without big bang singularity is presented, which displaysanearly inflationary period ending just before a phase transition to a deflationary epoch. The model produces enough heavy particles so as to reheat the universe…
Open Inflation has recently been suggested as a possible way out of the age crisis caused by observations of a large rate of expansion of the universe, in conflict with the existence of very old globular clusters. It proposes that our local…
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 Dark Side of the Universe, which includes the cosmological inflation in the early Universe, the current dark energy and dark matter, can be theoretically described by supergravity, though it is non-trivial. We recall the arguments pro…
We investigate the possible effect of cosmological-constant type dark energy during the inflation period of the early universe. This is accommodated by a new dispersion relation in de Sitter space. The modified inflation model of a…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
Eternal inflation is a seemingly generic consequence of theories that give rise to accelerated expansion of the universe and possess multiple vacuum states. Making predictions in an eternally inflating universe is notoriously difficult…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…