Related papers: An Improved Cosmological Model
On the occasion of a century from the proposal of General relativity by Einstein, I attempt to tackle some open issues in modern cosmology, via a toy but non-trivial model. Specifically, I would like to link together: (i) the smallness of…
We discuss the possibility that the inflationary paradigm, undoubtfully today's best framework to understand all the present cosmological data, may still have some viable challengers. The underlying idea for such discussions is that…
After decades of successful hot big-bang paradigm, Cosmology still lacks a framework in which the early inflationary phase of the universe smoothly matches the radiation epoch and evolves to the present `quasi' de Sitter spacetime. No less…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
We consider the fate of the observable universe in the light of the discovery of a dark energy component to the cosmic energy budget. We extend results for a cosmological constant to a general dark energy component and examine the…
A gravity-driven inflation is shown to arise from a simple higher dimensional universe. In vacuum, the shear of $n>1$ contracting dimensions is able to inflate the remaining three spatial dimensions. Said another way, the expansion of the…
We study a theory which generalizes the nonminimal coupling of matter to gravity by including derivative couplings. This leads to several interesting new dynamical phenomena in cosmology. In particular, the range of parameters in which…
In this paper the scalar-tensor theory of gravity is assumed to describe the evolution of the universe and the gravitational scalar $\phi$ is ascribed to play the role of inflaton. The theory is characterized by the specified coupling…
We are on the verge of the first precision testing of the inflationary cosmology as a model for the origin of structure in the Universe. I review the key predictions of inflation which can be used as observational tests, in the sense of…
Loop quantum cosmology provides an efficient framework to study the evolution of the Universe beyond the classical Big Bang paradigm. Because of holonomy corrections, the singularity is replaced by a "bounce". The dynamics of the background…
Recent observations of Type Ia supernovae provide evidence for the acceleration of our universe, which leads to the possibility that the universe is entering an inflationary epoch. We simulate it under a ``big bounce'' model, which contains…
The main aim of this paper is to provide a qualitative introduction to the cosmic inflation and its relationship with current cosmological observations. The inflationary model solves many of the fundamental problems that challenge the…
We continue developing cosmological models involving nilpotent chiral superfields, which provide a simple unified description of inflation and the current acceleration of the universe in the supergravity context. We describe here a general…
We propose a mechanism for generating an inflationary phase in the early universe without resorting to any type of scalar field(s). Instead, this accelerated expansion is driven by a dynamical "cosmological constant" in the framework of…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…
Assuming the existence of a cosmological constant depending on time, we study the evolution of this field in a local region of spacetime. Solving the standard equations of Einstein Relativity in the weak field approximation we find two…
A viable model for inflation driven by a torsion function in a Friedmann background is presented. The scalar spectral index in the interval $0.92\lesssim n_{s}\lesssim 0.97$ is obtained in order to satisfy the initial conditions for…
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…
For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…
We consider a cosmological model with bulk viscosity ($\eta$) and variable cosmological $(\Lambda\propto \rho^{-\alpha}, \alpha=\rm const.$) and gravitational ($G$) constants. The model exhibits many interesting cosmological features.…