Related papers: On the Quantum-To-Classical Transition for Ekpyrot…
We will perform a detailed study of the matter-ekpyrotic bouncing scenario in Loop Quantum Cosmology using the methods of the dynamical systems theory. We will show that when the background is driven by a single scalar field, at very late…
A semiclassical description of quantum systems is applied to probe the dynamics of the cosmological model of an inflationary universe with quadratic inflaton potential, described in a quantum framework of geometrodynamics. The systematic…
The ekpyrotic and cyclic universe scenarios have revived the idea that the density perturbations apparent in today's universe could have been generated in a `pre-singularity' epoch before the big bang. These scenarios provide explicit…
The theory of inflation provides a mechanism to explain the structures we observe today in the Universe, starting from quantum-mechanically generated fluctuations. However, this leaves the question of: how did the quantum-to-classical…
Primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology acquire classical properties through decoherence when their wavelengths become larger than the Hubble scale. Although decoherence is effective, it is not complete, so a significant part of…
We consider a cosmological scenario in which a scale-invariant spectrum of curvature perturbations is generated by a rapidly-evolving equation of state on a slowly expanding background. This scenario generalizes the "adiabatic ekpyrotic"…
Despite being created through a fundamentally quantum-mechanical process, cosmological structures have not yet revealed any sign of genuine quantum correlations. Among the obstructions to the direct detection of quantum signatures in…
A bipartite system whose subsystems are fully quantum chaotic and coupled by a perturbative interaction with a tunable strength is a paradigmatic model for investigating how isolated quantum systems relax towards an equilibrium. It is found…
In an inflationary cosmology, the observed primoridal density perturbation could come from the quantum fluctuations of another light 'curvaton' field, rather than the inflaton. In this case, it is essential that the curvaton decays,…
The entropy growth in a cosmological process of pair production is completely determined by the associated squeezing parameter, and is insensitive to the number of particles in the initial state. The total produced entropy may represent a…
In this work we investigate the semi-classical backreaction for a quantised conformal scalar field and classical vacuum energy. In contrast to the usual approximation of a closed system, our analysis includes an environmental sector such…
A new regime of coherent quantum dynamics of a qubit is realized at low driving frequencies in the strong driving limit. Coherent transitions between qubit states occur via the Landau-Zener process when the system is swept through an…
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…
Density contrasts in the universe are governed by scalar cosmological perturbations which, when expressed in terms of gauge-invariant variables, contain a classical component from scalar metric perturbations and a quantum component from…
We show that for an open quantum system which is classically chaotic (a quartic double well with harmonic driving coupled to a sea of harmonic oscillators) the rate of entropy production has, as a function of time, two relevant regimes: For…
The (large-scale) structures we observe in the Universe are classical, but within the inflationary scenario they do originate from quantum fluctuations. This leads to the question: ''How did this quantum-to-classical transition occur?''. A…
We derive all single-field cosmologies with unit sound speed that generate scale invariant curvature perturbations on a dynamical attractor background. We identify three distinct phases: slow-roll inflation; a slowly contracting adiabatic…
In this paper we study the entropy perturbations in N-flation by using the $\d\ma{N}$ formalism. We calculate the entropy corrections to the power spectrum of the overall curvature perturbation $P_{\z}$. We obtain an analytic form of the…
In the standard inflationary paradigm the inhomogeneities observed in the CMB arise from quantum fluctuations of an initially homogeneous and isotropic vacuum state. This picture suffers from two well-known weaknesses. First, it assumes…
Or: ``How to generate an ensemble in a single event?'' Following recent work on entropy in strong interactions, I explain the concept of environment-induced quantum decoherence in elementary quantum mechanics. The classically chaotic…