Related papers: Inflation as a Solution to the Early Universe Entr…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are…
Discovered almost forty years ago, inflation has become the leading paradigm for the early universe. Originally invented to avoid the fine-tuning puzzles of the standard model of cosmology, the so-called hot Big Bang phase, inflation has…
The big bang model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories are introduced. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent…
In this paper we present an informal description of the Cyclic Inflation scenario which allows our universe to "start" with a negative potential energy, inflate, and then gracefully exit to a positive potential energy universe. We discuss…
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…
Model independent arguments following from the Covariant Entropy Principle imply that causal diamonds in the very early universe were entirely filled with a single equilibrated system with finite entropy. A universe where this condition…
The Asymptotic Safety scenario predicts that the deep ultraviolet of Quantum Einstein Gravity is governed by a nontrivial renormalization group fixed point. Analyzing its implications for cosmology using renormalization group improved…
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…
Observations of the cosmic microwave sky are revealing the primordial non-uniformities from which all structure in the Universe grew. The only known physical mechanism for generating the inhomogeneities we see involves the amplification of…
In previous work, we showed that the answer to the question posed in the title cannot be found within an equilibrium setting. The inclusion of {\em dynamical} backreaction effects from massive long wavelength modes on the initial DeSitter…
We show that in a generic case of the pre-big-bang scenario, inflation will solve cosmological problems only if the universe at the onset of inflation is extremely large and homogeneous from the very beginning. The size of a homogeneous…
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…
We investigate the behavior of the entanglement entropy of space in the primordial phase of the universe before the beginning of cosmic inflation. We argue that in this phase the entanglement entropy of a region of space grows from a…
Quantum origin of the early inflationary Universe from the no-boundary and tunnelling quantum states is considered in the one-loop approximation of quantum cosmology. A universal effective action algorithm for the distribution function of…
We propose a model of inflation with a suitable potential for a single scalar field which falls in the wide class of hilltop inflation. We derive the analytical expressions for most of the physical quantities related to inflation and show…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are…
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…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
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…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…