Related papers: Warm Ekpyrosis
The universe can be made flat and smooth by undergoing a phase of ultra-slow (ekpyrotic) contraction, a condition achievable with a single, canonical scalar field and conventional general relativity. It has been argued, though, that…
The entropic mechanism for producing nearly scale-invariant density perturbations in a contracting ekpyrotic universe relies on having an unstable scalar potential. Here we develop a variant of this mechanism (recently proposed by Qiu, Gao…
In Pre-Big-Bang and in Ekpyrotic Cosmology, perturbations on cosmological scales today are generated from quantum vacuum fluctuations during a phase when the Universe is contracting (viewed in the Einstein frame). The backgrounds studied to…
We explore a new type of entropic mechanism for generating density perturbations in a contracting phase in which there are two scalar fields, but only one has a steep negative potential. This first field dominates the energy density and is…
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"…
In the standard entropic mechanism adopted in the simple Ekpyrotic models to generate the nearly scale-invariant and Gaussian primordial perturbation, the entropy direction is tachyonically unstable. In this paper, we consider the stable…
Ekpyrotic bouncing cosmologies have been proposed as alternatives to inflation. In these scenarios, the universe is smoothed and flattened during a period of slow contraction preceding the bounce while quantum fluctuations generate nearly…
At low energy, the four-dimensional effective action of the ekpyrotic model of the universe is equivalent to a slightly modified version of the pre big bang model. We discuss cosmological perturbations in these models. In particular we…
In this paper we construct an expanding phase with phantom matter, in which the scale factor expands very slowly but the Hubble parameter increases gradually, and assume that this expanding phase could be matched to our late observational…
Recently, we introduced an ekpyrotic model based on a single, canonical scalar field that generates nearly scale invariant curvature fluctuations through a purely "adiabatic mechanism" in which the background evolution is a dynamical…
A scale-invariant spectrum of isocurvature perturbations is generated during collapse in the ekpyrotic scaling solution in models where multiple fields have steep negative exponential potentials. The scale invariance of the spectrum is…
We present a mechanism to transfer the spectrum of perturbations in a scalar isocurvature field $\xi$ onto the matter content in the radiation era via modulated, instant preheating after ekpyrosis. In this setup, $\xi$ determines the…
A scale invariant spectrum of isocurvature perturbations is generated during collapse in the scaling solution in models where two or more fields have steep negative exponential potentials. The scale invariance of the spectrum is realised by…
We examine the processes of quantum squeezing and decoherence of density perturbations produced during a slowly contracting ekpyrotic phase in which entropic perturbations are converted to curvature perturbations before the bounce to an…
We analyze the general conditions on the equation of state $w$ required for quantum fluctuations of a scalar field to produce a scale-invariant spectrum of density perturbations, including models which (in the four dimensional effective…
We analyze the non-gaussian density perturbations generated in ekpyrotic/cyclic models based on heterotic M-theory. In this picture, two scalar fields produce nearly scale-invariant entropic perturbations during an ekpyrotic phase that are…
In this paper, we present a new scenario of the early Universe that contains a pre big bang Ekpyrotic phase. By combining this with a ghost condensate, the theory explicitly violates the null energy condition without developing any…
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…
Using the covariant formalism, we derive the equations of motion for adiabatic and entropy perturbations at third order in perturbation theory for cosmological models involving two scalar fields. We use these equations to calculate the…
We analyze a general mechanism for producing a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological curvature perturbations during a contracting phase preceding a big bang, that can be entirely described using 4d effective field theory. The…