Related papers: Can observations look back to the beginning of inf…
We investigate the circumstances under which cosmic inflation can arise from very inhomogeneous initial conditions using numerical relativity simulations. Previous studies have not considered cases with non-zero momentum density due to…
We study the possibility that particle production during inflation could source observable gravity waves on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. A crucial constraint on such scenarios arises because particle…
In a universe dominated by a small cosmological constant or by eternal dark energy with equation of state w < -1/3, observers are surrounded by event horizons. The horizons limit how much of the universe the observers can ever access. We…
We propose a qualitatively new mechanism for generating cosmological fluctuations from inflation. The non-equilibrium excitation of interacting scalar fields often evolves into infra-red (IR) and ultra-violet (UV) cascading, resulting in an…
We study the implications of recent indications for a red spectrum of primordial density perturbations for the detection of inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs) with forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments. We find that if…
Primordial quantum fluctuations produced by inflation are conventionally assumed to be statistically homogeneous, a consequence of translational invariance. In this paper we quantify the potentially observable effects of a small violation…
The lack of large-angle correlations in the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) conflicts with predictions of slow-roll inflation. But though probabilities (< 0.24%) for the missing correlations disfavor the conventional…
In this paper we put forward the idea that the comoving Hubble horizon undergoes multiple stages of contraction (a.k.a. inflationary phase) and expansion. The observable inflation, that produces the CMB anisotropies and generates primordial…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
The cosmological curvature perturbation may be generated when some `curvaton' field, different from the inflaton, oscillates in a background of unperturbed radiation. In its simplest form the curvaton paradigm requires the Hubble parameter…
If the cosmological inflationary scenario took place in the cosmic landscape in string theory, the inflaton, the scalar mode responsible for inflation, would have meandered in a complicated multi-dimensional potential. We show that this…
There is a wide consensus on the correct dynamics of the background in loop quantum cosmology. In this article we make a systematic investigation of the duration of inflation by varying what we think to be the most important "unknowns" of…
Recent measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) indicate that the Universe is flat and that large-scale structure grew via gravitational infall from primordial adiabatic perturbations. Both of these…
Due to the quasi-exponential red-shifting which occurs during an inflationary period in the very early Universe, wavelengths which at the present time correspond to cosmological lengths are in general sub-Planckian during the early stages…
We consider an additional fine-tuning problem which afflicts scalar-driven models of inflation. The problem is that successful reheating requires the inflaton be coupled to ordinary matter, and quantum fluctuations of this matter induces…
We investigate two classes of inflationary models, which lead to a stiff period after inflation that boosts the signal of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). In both families of models studied, we consider an oscillating scalar…
We show how a radiation dominated universe subject to space-time quantization may give rise to inflation as the radiation temperature exceeds the Planck temperature. We consider dispersion relations with a maximal momentum (i.e. a mimimum…
We propose a new source for the cosmological density perturbation which is passive fluctuations of the inflaton driven dynamically by a colored quantum noise as a result of its coupling to other massive quantum fields. The created…
We propose a cosmological lingering phase for the initial state prior to inflation which would help address the singularity problem of inflation. The universe begins with a constant (Hagedorn) temperature and then transitions into an…