Related papers: The Matter Bounce Scenario in Loop Quantum Cosmolo…
In bouncing cosmology, the primordial fluctuations are generated in a cosmic contraction phase before the bounce into the current expansion phase. For a nonsingular bounce, curvature and anisotropy grow rapidly during the bouncing phase,…
Theoretical considerations motivate us to consider vacuum energy to be able to decay and to assume that the spatial geometry of the universe is closed. Combining both aspects leads to the possibility that the universe, or certain regions…
A consistent combination of quantum geometry effects rules out a large class of models of loop quantum cosmology and their critical densities as they have been used in the recent literature. In particular, the critical density at which an…
A fundamental issue for any quantum cosmological theory is to specify how probabilities can be assigned to various quantum events or sequences of events such as the occurrence of singularities or bounces. In previous work, we have…
In the ekpyrotic scenario the Universe is initially collapsing, the energy density coming from a scalar field with a negative exponential potential. On the basis of a calculation ignoring the gravitational back-reaction the authors of the…
In the present work we revisit a model consisting of a scalar field with a quartic self-interaction potential non-minimally (conformally) coupled to gravity [1]. When the scalar field vacuum is in a broken symmetry state, an effective…
If the spatial sections of the Universe are positively curved, extrapolating the inflationary stage backward in time inevitably leads to a classical bounce. This simple scenario, non-singular and free of exotic physics, deserves to be…
Modeling of matter bounce in $f(R,T)$ gravity has been presented with no violation of the null energy condition. Only a closed universe with negative pressure is allowed in good agreement with some recent observations which favor a universe…
Modification to the behavior of geometrical density at short scales is a key result of loop quantum cosmology, responsible for an interesting phenomenology in the very early universe. We demonstrate the way matter with arbitrary scale…
The loop quantization of the negatively curved k=-1 RW model poses several technical challenges. We show that the issues can be overcome and a successful quantization is possible that extends the results of the k=0,+1 models in a natural…
The recent transition from decelerated to accelerated expansion can be seen as a reflection (or "bounce") in the connection variable, defined by the inverse comoving Hubble length ($b=\dot a$, on-shell). We study the quantum cosmology of…
Bouncing cosmologies, suggested by String/M-theory, may provide an alternative to standard inflation to account for the origin of inhomogeneities in our universe. The fundamental question regards the correct way to evolve the scalar…
We present a bouncing cosmology which evolves from the contracting to the expanding phase in a smooth way, without developing instabilities or pathologies and remaining in the regime of validity of 4d effective field theory. A nearly scale…
Oscillating solutions to the effective equations of Loop Quantum Cosmology have been suggested for the role of an `eternal seed', providing a possible starting point for the emergent universe scenario. We investigate the stability of a…
Assuming that curvature perturbations and gravitational waves originally arise from vacuum fluctuations in a matter-dominated phase of contraction, we study the dynamics of the cosmological perturbations evolving through a nonsingular…
Building upon our recently established correspondence between quantum cosmology and the hydrogen atom [1], we investigate the specific sector of a negative cosmological constant ($\Lambda < 0$) in a flat FLRW universe with dust. While the…
Einstein-Cartan theory is an extension of the standard formulation of General Relativity characterized by a non-vanishing torsion. The latter is sourced by the matter fields via the spin tensor, and its effects are expected to be important…
In this paper we study possible observational consequences of the bouncing cosmology. We consider a model where a phase of inflation is preceded by a cosmic bounce. While we consider in this paper only that the bounce is due to loop quantum…
We consider the possibility to produce a bouncing universe in the framework of scalar-tensor gravity when the scalar field has a nonconformal coupling to the Ricci scalar. We prove that bouncing universes regular in the future with…
We consider the ekpyrotic paradigm in the context of loop quantum cosmology. In loop quantum cosmology the classical big-bang singularity is resolved due to quantum gravity effects, and so the contracting ekpyrotic branch of the universe…