Related papers: Lectures on Inflation
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
A basic modern picture of the universe is given here. The lectures start from the historical ideas of a static universe. Then I move on to Newtonian cosmology and derive the main cosmological equations in the framework of Newtonian…
We analyse numerically the onset of pre-big bang inflation in an inhomogeneous, spherically symmetric Universe. Adding a small dilatonic perturbation to a trivial (Milne) background, we find that suitable regions of space undergo…
The evolution of a scalar field is explored taking into account the presence of a background fluid in a positively curved Universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Though the mechanism that provides the initial conditions for…
Contents: Introduction. The Present State of the Universe. What Can We Expect From a Complete Cosmological Theory? An Overview of Quantum Effects in Cosmology. Parametric (Superadiabatic) Amplification of Classical Waves. Graviton Creation…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
I present a very simplistic toy model for the inflationary paradigm where the size of the universe undergoes a period of exponential growth. The basic assumption I make use of is that black holes might have a quantized area (mass) spectrum…
This contribution consists of two parts. In the first part, I review the tunneling approach to quantum cosmology and comment on the alternative approaches. In the second part, I discuss the relation between quantum cosmology and eternal…
In these notes we present a selection of topics, each section approximately amounting to one lecture. We begin with a brief recapitulation of General Relativity, and the Standard Model of Cosmology. This is followed by lectures on important…
These four lectures cover four topics in modern cosmology: the cosmological constant, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, and cosmology as a probe of physics at the Planck scale. The underlying theme is that cosmology gives us a…
The aim of this chapter is to explain in clear and pedagogical terms how some particle-physics models and/or mechanisms can naturally lead to inflation and how this can provide testable predictions that can help us find new physics effects.…
Although the inflationary paradigm is the most widely accepted explanation for the current cosmological observations, it does not necessarily correspond to what actually happened in the early stages of our Universe. To decide on this issue,…
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems,…
Quantum origin of the early inflationary Universe from the no-boundary and tunnelling quantum states is considered in the one-loop approximation of quantum cosmology. A universal effective action algorithm for the distribution function of…
In this lecture I will review some recent progress in improving the accuracy of the calculation of density perturbations resulting from inflation.
The paper is an introduction to intuitionistic mathematics.
We note that the essential idea of inflation, that the universe underwent a brief period of accelerated expansion followed by a long period of decelerated expansion, can be encapsulated in a "closure condition" which relates the amount of…
A QED-based model of a new version of Vacuum Energy has recently been suggested, which leads to a simple, finite, one parameter representation of Dark Energy. An elementary, obvious, but perhaps radical generalization is then able to…