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In a thermodynamical model of cosmological FLRW event horizons for the dark energy (DE), we consider a logarithmic corrective term in the entropy to which corresponds a new term in the DE density. This model of $\Lambda (t)$ in an…
We review the current standard model for the evolution of the Universe from an early inflationary epoch to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. We summarize and provide key references for the following topics: observations of the…
We compute the evolution of the entanglement entropy for a massless field within a spherical region throughout the inflationary period and the subsequent era of radiation domination, starting from the Bunch-Davies vacuum. In order to focus…
In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics will be made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of these links. Our…
We analyze cosmology assuming unitary quantum mechanics, using a tripartite partition into system, observer and environment degrees of freedom. This generalizes the second law of thermodynamics to "The system's entropy can't decrease unless…
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…
We review why the search for a causal explanation of the large scale properties of the universe supports the idea that an extended period of accelerated expansion, called inflation, preceded primordial nucleosynthesis. As a consequence of…
While there is no consensus about the history of time since the beginning, in this paper I will discuss some possibilities. We have a pretty clear picture of cosmic history from the electroweak phase transition through the time of…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
I review in these lectures our present understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe, making emphasis on the most recent observations of the acceleration of the universe, the precise measurements of the microwave background…
Combining the equivalence between cosmological particle creation and an effective viscous fluid pressure with the fact that the latter represents a dynamical degree of freedom within the second-order Israel-Stewart theory for imperfect…
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…
We argue that the emergent spacetime picture admits a background-independent formulation of cosmic inflation. The inflation in this picture corresponds to the dynamical emergence of spacetime while the conventional inflation is simply an…
Current astronomical observations are successfully explained by the present cosmological paradigm based on the concordance model ($\Lambda_0$CDM + Inflation). However, such a scenario is composed of a heterogeneous mix of ingredients for…
When did the universe thermalize? In this talk I review the status of this issue and its importance in establishing the expected properties of dark matter, the growth of large-scale structure, and the viability of inflation models when…
We compute the cosmic background radiation anisotropy, produced by energy-density fluctuations generated during an early epoch of inflation, in an open cosmological model based on the cold dark matter scenario. At $\Omega_0 \sim$ 0.3 --…
Cosmological inflation provides the simplest and most promising mechanism for generating fluctuations for structure formation. Using powerful Hamilton-Jacobi methods, I will describe (1) how to compute density fluctuations and cosmic…
We analyze a class of generalized inflationary models proposed in Ref. [1], known as $\beta$-exponential inflation. We show that this kind of potential can arise in the context of brane cosmology, where the field describing the size of the…
The simplest explanation for early time acceleration (inflation) and the late time acceleration indicated by recent data is that they have a common origin. We investigate another generic cosmological implication of this possiblity, that the…
These lectures are intended to give a pedagogical introduction to the main current picture of the very early universe. After elementary reviews of general relativity and of the standard Big Bang model, the following subjects are discussed:…