Related papers: Kasner solutions, climbing scalars and big-bang si…
In inflationary scenarios with more than one scalar field, inflation may proceed even if each of the individual fields has a potential too steep for that field to sustain inflation on its own. We show that scalar fields with exponential…
We present a phase-space analysis of cosmology containing multiple scalar fields with a positive or negative cross-coupling exponential potential. We show that there exist power-law kinetic-potential-scaling solutions for a sufficiently…
An idea which has been around in general relativity for more than forty years is that in the approach to a big bang singularity solutions of the Einstein equations can be approximated by the Kasner map, which describes a succession of…
We study the existence and stability of static kink-like configurations of a 5D scalar field, with Dirichlet boundary conditions, along the extra dimension of a warped braneworld. In the presence of gravity such configurations fail to…
Recently, a new interesting instability of a charged scalar field in the Reissner-Nordstr\"om-de Sitter background has been found (arXiv:1405.4931v2) through the time-domain integration of the perturbation equation. We investigate further…
We evolve a scalar field in a fixed Kerr-Schild background geometry to test simple $(3+1)$-dimensional algorithms for singularity excision. We compare both centered and upwind schemes for handling the shift (advection) terms, as well as…
We investigate the charged scalar field propagating in a (2+1) charged BTZ black hole. The conditions for stability are studied unveiling, for each black hole geometry, the existence of a critical scalar charge as of the evolution is…
We offer a geometric interpretation of attractor theories with singular kinetic terms as a union of multiple canonical models. We demonstrate that different domains (separated by poles) can drastically differ in their phenomenology. We…
Multi-field inflation with a curved scalar geometry has been found to support background trajectories that violate the slow-roll, slow-turn conditions and thus have the potential to evade the swampland constraints. In order to understand…
This note makes a self-contained exposition of the basic facts of big bang cosmology as they relate to inflation. The fundamental problems with that model are then explored. A quartic scalar potential model of inflation is evaluated which…
Although general relativity passes all precision tests to date, there are several reasons to go beyond the current model of gravitation and search for new fundamental physics. This means looking for new, so far undetected, fields. Scalars…
In a subclass of scalar-tensor theories, it has been shown that standard general relativity solutions of neutron stars and black holes with trivial scalar field profiles are unstable. Such an instability leads to solutions which are…
The behaviour of a massive, non-interacting and non-minimally coupled quantised scalar field in an expanding de Sitter background is investigated by solving the field evolution for an arbitrary initial state. In this approach there is no…
We study black holes in a modified gravity scenario involving a scalar field quadratically coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet invariant. The scalar is assumed to be in a spontaneously broken phase at spatial infinity due to a bare Higgs-like…
A collision of orbifold planes in eleven dimensions has been proposed as an explanation of the hot big bang. When the two planes are close to each other, the winding membranes become the lightest modes of the theory, and can be effectively…
Positively-curved, oscillatory universes have recently been shown to have important consequences for the pre-inflationary dynamics of the early universe. In particular, they may allow a self-interacting scalar field to climb up its…
A unified approach to quintessence and inflation is investigated with the use of a single scalar field. It is argued that successful potentials have to approximate a combination of exponential and inverse power-law decline in the limit of…
A simple model for a scalar field and gravity admits homogeneous isotropic cosmological solutions which cross the Big Bang singularity. In the scaling frame with field dependent effective Planck mass these solutions are regular. They become…
A scalar field with an exponential potential has the particular property that it is attracted into a solution in which its energy scales as the dominant component (radiation or matter) of the Universe, contributing a fixed fraction of the…
We show how to regularize the big bang singularity in the presence of random perturbations modeled by Brownian motion using stochastic methods. We prove that the physical variables in a contracting universe dominated by a scalar field can…