Related papers: A Quantum Window Onto Early Inflation
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
Cosmological models with inflation and those with bounce have their own strengths and weaknesses. Here we construct a model in which a phase of bounce is followed by a viable inflationary phase. This incorporates several advantages of both…
Quantum effects play an essential role in modern cosmology. Perhaps the most striking example comes from large-scale structures, generally assumed to originate from vacuum quantum fluctuations and stretched by an expansion phase. Inflation…
Using computer simulations we study the geometry of a typical quantum universe, i.e. the geometry one might expect before a possible period of inflation. We display it using coordinates defined by means of four classical scalar fields…
Quantum gravitational back-reaction offers the potential of simultaneously resolving the problem of the cosmological constant and providing a natural model of inflation in which scalars play no special role. In this model inflation begins…
Inflation provides a natural mechanism to account for the origin of cosmic structures. The generation of primordial inhomogeneities during inflation can be understood via the spontaneous creation of quanta from the vacuum. We show that when…
Since inflationary perturbations must generically couple to all degrees of freedom present in the early Universe, it is more realistic to view these fluctuations as an open quantum system interacting with an environment. Then, on very…
Possibly, the most general action in the background of isotropic and homogeneous space-time has been considered to study the quantum evolution of the early universe, apart from a cosmological constant. The hermiticity of the effective…
The prediction of a phase of inflation whose number of e-folds is constrained is an important feature of loop quantum cosmology. This work aims at giving some elementary clarifications on the role of the different hypotheses leading to this…
The status of quantum cosmologies as testable models of the early universe is assessed in the context of inflation. While traditional Wheeler-DeWitt quantization is unable to produce sizable effects in the cosmic microwave background, the…
The pre--big bang cosmological scenario is studied within the context of the Brans--Dicke theory of gravity. An epoch of superinflationary expansion may occur in the pre--big bang phase of the Universe's history in a certain region of…
If the spatial curvature of the universe is positive, then the curvature term will always dominate at early enough times in a slow-rolling inflationary epoch. This enhances inflationary effects and hence puts limits on the possible number…
We investigate the initiation of cosmic inflation, in full numerical relativity, from pre-inflationary scenarios with large tensor and vector fluctuations in the metric. These settings are characterized by having large values in the Weyl…
We re-analyze the question of the use of cosmological observations to infer the present state and future evolution of our patch of the universe. In particular, we discuss under which conditions one might be able to infer that our patch will…
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…
The Planck collaboration has provided us rich information about the early universe, and a host of new observational missions will soon shed further light on the `anomalies' that appear to exist on the largest angular scales. From a quantum…
We study the quantum evolution of the early universe, its semi-classical analogue together with inflationary regime, in view of a generalized modified theory of gravity. The action is built by supplementing the non-minimally coupled…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
We survey observational constraints on the parameter space of inflation and axions and map out two allowed windows: the classic window and the inflationary anthropic window. The cosmology of the latter is particularly interesting;…
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…