Related papers: Spatial Curvature Falsifies Eternal Inflation
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
We study the effect of global topology of the spatial geometry on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for closed flat and closed hyperbolic models in which the spatial hypersurface is multiply connected. If the CMB temperature…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
The eternal inflation scenario predicts that our observable universe resides inside a single bubble embedded in a vast inflating multiverse. We present the first observational tests of eternal inflation, performing a search for cosmological…
Cosmic inflation, which describes an accelerated expansion of the early Universe, yields the most successful predictions regarding temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Nevertheless, the precise origin of the…
We investigate an inflationary model of the universe based on the assumption that space-time is noncommutative in the very early universe. We analyze the effects of space-time noncommutativity on the quantum fluctuations of an inflaton…
A precise measurement of the curvature of the Universe is of primeval importance for cosmology since it could not only confirm the paradigm of primordial inflation but also help in discriminating between different early Universe scenarios.…
We consider the non-commutative inflation model of [3] in which it is the unconventional dispersion relation for regular radiation which drives the accelerated expansion of space. In this model, we study the evolution of linear cosmological…
It is necessary to make assumptions in order to derive models to be used for cosmological predictions and comparison with observational data. In particular, in standard cosmology the spatial curvature is assumed to be constant and zero (or…
We consider the eternal inflation scenario of the slow-roll/chaotic type with the additional element of an objective collapse of the wave function. The incorporation of this new agent to the traditional inflationary setting might represent…
Current constraints on spatial curvature show that it is dynamically negligible: $|\Omega_{\rm K}| \lesssim 5 \times 10^{-3}$ (95% CL). Neglecting it as a cosmological parameter would be premature however, as more stringent constraints on…
The conventional $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model supplemented by the inflation concept describes the Universe very well. However, there are still a few concerns: new Planck data impose constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential,…
The ability to test and constrain theories of cosmic inflation will advance substantially over the next decade. Key data sources include cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and observations of the distribution of matter at…
We describe the implications of cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and galaxy and cluster surveys of large scale structure (LSS) for theories of cosmic structure formation, especially emphasizing the recent Boomerang and Maxima…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. I describe the quantum origin of density perturbations, giving a heuristic derivation of…
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
We consider the hypothesis that nonlocal, omnidirectional, causally-coherent quantum entanglement of inflationary horizons may account for some well-known measured anomalies of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy on large angular…
We revisit the observational constraints on spatial curvature following recent claims that the Planck data favour a closed Universe. We use a new and statistically powerful Planck likelihood to show that the Planck temperature and…
Eternal inflation produces pocket universes with all physically allowed vacua and histories. Some of these pocket universes might contain a phase of slow-roll inflation, some might undergo cycles of cosmological evolution and some might…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…