Related papers: Inflation as a Solution to the Early Universe Entr…
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…
Cosmological inflation, if it occurred, radically alters the picture of the `big bang', which would merely point to reheating at the end of inflation. Moreover, this reheating may be only local, so that inflation continues elsewhere and…
We present a natural scenario for obtaining an open universe ($\Omega _0<1$) through inflation. In this scenario, there are two epochs of inflationary expansion---an epoch of `old inflation,' during which the inflaton field is stuck in a…
Inflation is the currently accepted paradigm for the beginnings of the Universe. To explain the observed almost scale invariant spectrum of density perturbations with only a slight spectral tilt, inflation must have been "slow roll", that…
Observational cosmology is in its "golden age" with a vast amount of recent data on the distribution of matter and light in the universe. This data can be used to probe theories of the very early universe. It is small amplitude cosmological…
We review here some recent results that show that inflationary cosmological models must contain initial singularities. We also present a new singularity theorem. The question of the initial singularity re-emerges in inflationary cosmology…
A brief review of the modern state of quantum cosmology is presented as a theory of quantum initial conditions for inflationary scenario. The no-boundary and tunneling states of the Universe are discussed as a possible source of probability…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
Inflationary cosmology attempts to provide a natural explanation for the flatness and homogeneity of the observable universe. In the context of reversible (unitary) evolution, this goal is difficult to satisfy, as Liouville's theorem…
An outgrowth of the idea of inflation is advanced. In the inflation regime, the singularity condition is broken. Equations which govern inflation are invariant under time reversal, so that they describe deflation as well. Those two…
We study the entanglement entropy resulting from tracing out local degrees of freedom of a quantum scalar field in an expanding universe. It is known that when field modes become superhorizon during inflation they evolve to increasingly…
The inflationary phase of the Universe is explored by proposing a toy model related to the scalar field, termed as {\it inflaton}. The potential part of the energy density in the said era is assumed to have a constant vacuum energy density…
We compute the evolution of the entanglement entropy for a massless field within a spherical region throughout the inflationary period and the subsequent era of radiation domination, starting from the Bunch-Davies vacuum. In order to focus…
The leading account of several salient observable features of our universe today is provided by the theory of cosmic inflation. But an important and thus far intractable question is whether inflation is generic, or whether it is finely…
We discuss the entropy and the size/homogeneity/horizon problems in power-law expanding universes with one scale initial conditions. We set the minimal scale $\Lambda = 10^{25}$ GeV at which a non-inflationary solution is possible and show…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
On the one hand, inflation is an extremely convincing scenario: it solves most cosmological paradoxes and generates fluctuations that became the seeds for the growth of structures. It, however, suffers from a "naturalness" problem:…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
Closed, singularity-free, inflationary cosmological models have recently been studied in the context of general relativity. Despite their appeal, these so called emergent models suffer from a number of limitations. These include the fact…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…