Related papers: Inflation as a Solution to the Early Universe Entr…
We provide an explicit calculation of the evolution of the cosmic entanglement entropy in the early universe before the matter dominant era. This is made possible by invoking the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model, which has the…
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 entropy of the observable universe is increasing. Thus, at earlier times the entropy was lower. However, the cosmic microwave background radiation reveals an apparently high entropy universe close to thermal and chemical equilibrium. A…
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…
Modern physics has unlocked a number of mysteries regarding the early Universe, such as the baryogenesis, the unification of the strong and electroweak forces and the nucleosynthesis. However, understanding the very early Universe, close to…
The scalar field is considered to have dominated the early Universe. One subtle yet crucial requirement of this assumption is that the solution must be highly stable, i.e., indifferent to any initial conditions because there are no favored…
The notion of inflation (past or present) in standard cosmological models is shown to be a consequence of a sufficiently high second law entropy production from the internal heating of the universal expansion. The longitudinal viscous…
We show that the entropy of cosmological perturbations originating as quantum vacuum fluctuations in the very early universe, including the contribution of the leading nonlinear interactions, can be viewed as momentum space entanglement…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
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…
Inflationary models are generally credited with explaining the large scale homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe as well as accounting for the origin of structure (i.e., the deviations from exact homogeneity) in our universe.…
We consider the description of cosmological dynamics from the onset of inflation by a perfect fluid whose parameters must be consistent with the strength of the enhanced quantum loop effects that can arise during inflation. The source of…
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…
In the framework of a cosmological model of the Universe filled with a nonrelativistic particle soup, we easily reproduce inflation due to the quantum potential. The lightest particles in the soup serve as a driving force of this simple,…
Warm inflation has normalized two ideas in cosmology, that in the early universe the initial primordial density perturbations generally could be of classical rather than quantum origin and that during inflation, particle production from…
Yes, if the universe has compact topology. Inflation is currently the most elegant explanation of why the universe is old, large, nearly flat, homogeneous on large scales and structured on small scales. One of the weaknesses of the…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. It is argued that essentially all inflationary models lead to (future-)eternal…
This is a completely rewritten version of the talk I gave at the Philosophy of Cosmology conference in Tenerife, September 2014, which incorporates elements of my IFT Madrid Anthropics Conference talk. The original was too technical. The…