Related papers: Why concave rather than convex inflaton potential?
A model of inflation is proposed in which compact extra dimensions allow a graceful exit without recourse to flat potentials or super-Planckian field values. Though bubbles of true vacuum are too sparse to uniformly reheat the Universe by…
It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the…
The so-called "trans-Planckian" problem of inflation may be evaded by positing that modes come into existence only when they became "cis-Planckian" by virtue of expansion. However, this would imply that for any mode a new random realization…
The recent Planck data of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies support the Starobinsky theory in which the quadratic Ricci scalar drives cosmic inflation. We build up a multi-dimensional quantum consisted ultraviolet…
Perhaps the deepest mystery of our accelerating Universe in expansion is the existence of a tiny and rigid cosmological constant, $\Lambda$. Its size is many orders of magnitude below the expected one in the standard model of particle…
We discuss a two-step mechanism to create a new inflationary domain beyond a wormhole throat which is created by a phase transition around an evaporating black hole. The first step is creation of a false vacuum bubble with a thin-wall…
Recent measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) indicate that the Universe is flat and that large-scale structure grew via gravitational infall from primordial adiabatic perturbations. Both of these…
The $R+R^2$ model of gravity with the corresponding shallow potential in the Einstein frame is consistent with the observations. Recently, many efforts have been made to generalize the $R+R^2$ (Starobinsky) model of inflation or use other…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
We argue that the Starobinsky model of inflation, realised via an $R^2$ term in the Lagrangian, can originate from quantum effects due to a tower of light species. By means of two separate arguments, we show how this implies that the scale…
We propose the mechanism of quantum creation of the open Universe in the observable range of values of $\Omega$. This mechanism is based on the no-boundary quantum state with the Hawking-Turok instanton in the model with nonminimally…
We propose a natural scenario for the cosmological inflation with the non-minimal coupling term invoking compact hyperbolic extra dimensions. Thanks to the unique mathematical properties of compact hyperbolic space, the large volume of…
According to the inflationary scenario, all structure in the Universe can be traced back to quantum fluctuations of the metric and scalar field(s) during inflation. The seeds of this structure can be observed as classical anisotropies in…
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…
It is often said that detecting a spectrum of primordial gravitational waves via observing B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background is the "Holy Grail" of inflation. The purpose of this short note is to point out that it is…
In this paper we will analyze generic predictions of an inflection-point model of inflation with Hubble-induced corrections and study them in light of the Planck data. Typically inflection-point models of inflation can be embedded within…
Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General…
The trans-Planckian censorship conjecture implies that single-field models of inflation require an extreme fine-tuning of the initial conditions due to the very low-scale of inflation. In this work, we show how a quantum cosmological…
We consider a Universe with a three-torus topology which before inflation is devoid of any matter or radiation. Its pre-inflationary evolution is driven solely by Casimir energies of the existing fields, with a radiation-like equation of…
We present a novel background-independent framework for cosmic inflation, starting with a matrix model. In this framework, inflation is portrayed as a dynamic process responsible for the generation of both space and time. This stands in…