Related papers: Cosmic Bounces and Cyclic Universes
This chapter provides a review of the frameworks developed for cosmological perturbation theory in loop quantum cosmology, and applications to various models of the early universe including inflation, ekpyrosis and the matter bounce, with…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
Loop quantum cosmology predicts that, in simple models, the big bang singularity of classical general relativity is replaced by a quantum bounce. Because of the extreme physical conditions near the bounce, a natural question is whether the…
Using the simplest model for a bouncing universe, namely that for which gravity is described by pure general relativity, the spatial sections are positively curved and the matter content is a single scalar field, we obtain the transition…
We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a bounce phase which has superimposed oscillations of the scale factor. We identify length scales for which the final spectrum of fluctuations…
In this paper we discuss models satisfying the limiting curvature condition. For this purpose we modify the Einstein-Hilbert action by adding a term which restricts the growth of curvature. We analyze cosmological solutions in such models.…
A new model is studied which describes the quantum behavior of transitions through an isotropic quantum cosmological bounce in loop quantum cosmology sourced by a free and massless scalar field. As an exactly solvable model even at the…
Cosmological bounces occur in many gravity theories. We define singularity scattering maps relating large scale geometries before and after the bounce (assuming no BKL oscillations) and encoding microscopic details of the theory. By…
We present a stable cosmological model of a closed universe in the presence of conventional scalar field. The stability of the model and absence of singularity is ensured by spatial curvature without the need for additional peculiar matter.…
Space-filling S-branes can mediate a transition between a contracting and an expanding universe in the Einstein frame. Following up on previous work that uncovered such bouncing solutions in the context of weakly coupled thermal…
I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction. The second is an…
Inflationary cosmology with a preceding nonsingular bounce can lead to changes on the primordial density fluctuations. One significant prediction is that the amplitude of the power spectrum may undergo a jump at a critical scale. In this…
We present a novel theory of the very early universe which addresses the traditional horizon and flatness problems of big bang cosmology and predicts a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations. Unlike inflation, this scenario requires no…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
We offer a new proposal for cosmic singularity resolution based upon a quantum cosmology with a unitary bounce. This proposal is illustrated via a novel quantization of a mini-superspace model in which there can be superpositions of the…
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…
This article gives a concise overview of the development and current status of studies on healthy models of the early Universe without an initial singularity, namely the cosmological bounce and Genesis scenarios, constructed within a broad…
Recent advances in understanding the propagation of perturbations through the transition from big crunch to big bang (esp. Tolley et al. hep-th/0306109) make it possible for the first time to consider the full set of phenomenological…
The evolution of the luminosity distance in a contracting universe is studied. It is shown that for quite a lot of natural dynamical evolutions, its behavior is far from trivial and its value can even decrease with an increasing time…
Matrix theory is a proposed non-perturbative definition of superstring theory in which space is emergent. We begin a study of cosmology in the context of matrix theory. Specifically, we show that matrix theory can lead to an emergent…