Related papers: Observational Exclusion of a Consistent Quantum Co…
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…
At the level of heuristic effective dynamics, we investigate the cosmological inflation with holonomy corrections of loop quantum cosmology (LQC) in the $k=0$ Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model with a single inflaton field subject to a simple…
We revisit the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraints on the spatial curvature of the Universe, assessing how they change when the curvature parameter and the primordial inflationary scalar spectrum are treated consistently within…
Space-based missions studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have progressively refined the parameter space in conventional models of inflation shortly ($\sim 10^{-37}$ seconds) after the big bang. While most inflationary scenarios…
We consider the description of cosmological dynamics from the onset of inflation by a perfect fluid whose parameters must be consistent with the strength of the enhanced quantum loop effects that can arise during inflation. The source of…
The ability to test and constrain theories of cosmic inflation will advance substantially over the next decade. Key data sources include cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and observations of the distribution of matter at…
In this paper, we investigate a scenario of variable gravity and apply it to the unified description of inflation and late time cosmic acceleration dubbed quintessential inflation. The scalar field called "cosmon" which in this model…
Cosmological inflation remains to be a unique mechanism of generation of plausible initial conditions in the early universe. In particular, it generates the primordial quasiclassical perturbations with power spectrum determined by the…
Models of cosmic inflation posit an early phase of accelerated expansion of the universe, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields in curved spacetime. Though detailed assumptions about fields and couplings vary across models,…
We theoretically and observationally investigate different choices of initial conditions for the primordial mode function that are imposed during an epoch preceding inflation. By deriving predictions for the observables resulting from…
Loop quantum cosmology provides a nice solution of avoiding the big bang singularity through a big bounce mechanism in the high energy region. In loop quantum cosmology an inflationary universe is emergent after the big bounce, no matter…
Inflationary cosmology has, in the last few years,received a strong dose of support from observations. The fact that the fluctuation spectrum can be extracted from the inflationary scenario through an analysis that involves quantum field…
We investigate the quantum cosmological tunneling scenario for inflationary models. Within a path-integral approach, we derive the corresponding tunneling probability distribution. A sharp peak in this distribution can be interpreted as the…
Attempts to apply quantum collapse theories to Cosmology and cosmic inflation are reviewed. These attempts are motivated by the fact that the theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin suffers from the single outcome…
We investigate how various inflationary and bouncing cosmologies can be realized by imperfect fluids with a generalized equation of state, in the context of both classical and loop quantum cosmology. With regards to the inflationary…
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…
We show that inflationary cosmology may be used to test the statistical predictions of quantum theory at very short distances and at very early times. Hidden-variables theories, such as the pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm, allow…
After a brief review of the different approaches to predict the possible quantum gravity corrections to quantum field theory, we discuss in some detail the formulation based on a Gaussian reference frame fixing. Then, we implement this…
The observational status of inflation after the Planck 2013 and 2015 results and the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck joint analysis is discussed. These pedagogical lecture notes are intended to serve as a technical guide filling the gap…
In this paper, inflationary cosmology is reviewed, paying particular attention to its observational signatures associated with large-scale density perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations. In the most general scalar-tensor theories…