Related papers: Classical Inflationary and Ekpyrotic Universes in …
We analyze the emergence of classical inflationary universes in a kinetic-dominated stage using a suitable class of solutions of the Wheeler-De Witt equation with a constant potential. These solutions are eigenfunctions of the inflaton…
Ekpyrotic instantons describe the emergence of classical contracting universes out of the no-boundary quantum state. However, up to now these instantons ended in a big crunch singularity. We remedy this by adding a higher-derivative term,…
The no-boundary proposal provides a compelling theory for the initial conditions of our universe. We study the implications of such initial conditions for ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies. These cosmologies allow for the existence of a new…
We study the emergence of anisotropic (Bianchi IX) inflationary universes with no-boundary conditions in the path integral approach to quantum gravity. In contrast to previous work, we find no evidence for any limit to how large the…
Positively-curved, oscillatory universes are studied within the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology subject to a consistent semi-classical treatment. The semi-classical effects are reformulated in terms of an effective phantom fluid with a…
In bouncing cosmological models, either classical or quantum, the big bang singularity is replaced by a regular bounce. A challenging question in such models is how to keep the shear under control in the contracting phase, as it is…
Quantum decoherence and the transition to semiclassical behavior during inflation has been extensively considered in the literature. In this paper, we use a simple model to analyze the same process in ekpyrosis. Our result is that the…
We investigate three issues that have been discussed in the context of inflation: Fading of the importance of quantum non-commutativity; the phenomenon of quantum squeezing; and the ability to approximate the quantum state by a distribution…
Inflation has by-far set itself as one of the prime ideas in the current cosmological models that seemingly has an answer for every observed phenomenon in cosmology. More importantly, it serves as a bridge between the early quantum…
We analyze the origin of the quasiclassical realm from the no-boundary proposal for the universe's quantum state in a class of minisuperspace models. The models assume homogeneous, isotropic, closed spacetime geometries, a single scalar…
According to the inflationary scenario for the very early Universe, all inhomogeneities in the Universe are of genuine quantum origin. On the other hand, looking at these inhomogeneities and measuring them, clearly no specific quantum…
We discuss the classicalization of a quantum state induced by an environment in the inflationary stage of the universe. The classicalization is necessary for the homogeneous ground sate to become classical non-homogeneous one accompanied…
We consider the no-boundary proposal for homogeneous isotropic closed universes with a cosmological constant and a scalar field with a quadratic potential. In the semi-classical limit, it predicts classical behavior at late times if the…
Eternal inflation arising from a potential landscape predicts that our universe is one realization of many possible cosmological histories. One way to access different cosmological histories is via the nucleation of bubble universes from a…
In a quantum theory of cosmology spacetime behaves classically only in limited patches of the configuration space on which the wave function of the universe is defined. Quantum transitions can connect classical evolution in different…
We show that classicality emerges during quantum phase transitions due to parametric interactions without coupling to environments. The Wigner functions are explicitly calculated for the Gaussian vacuum, number, and thermal states of a free…
A discrete class of privileged reference frames in a closed universe with identical equations of motion for physical degrees of freedom was found. A representation of the quantum state of the universe in a privileged reference frame was…
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…
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…
We develop a quantum-cosmological framework in which the inflationary potential emerges from the structure of the wave function of the universe rather than being postulated. Starting from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for a flat…