Related papers: Topological Inflation
In this paper we will discuss a model which describes the cause of inflation by a topological transition. The guiding principle is the choice of an exotic smoothness structure for the space-time. Here we consider a space-time with topology…
In the context of loop quantum cosmology, we consider an inflationary era driven by a canonical scalar field and occurring in the semiclassical regime, where spacetime is a continuum but quantum gravitational effects are important. The…
Using the dS/QFT correspondence in the context of inflation allows for the study of interesting, otherwise inaccessible physics. In particular, by studying inflation via its dual field theory at the boundary of the de Sitter space, it may…
Inflation is the currently accepted paradigm for the beginnings of the Universe. To explain the observed almost scale invariant spectrum of density perturbations with only a slight spectral tilt, inflation must have been "slow roll", that…
We investigate the global structure of inflationary universe both by analytical methods and by computer simulations of stochastic processes in the early Universe. We show that the global structure of the universe depends crucially on the…
We consider the eternal inflation scenario of the slow-roll/chaotic type with the additional element of an objective collapse of the wave function. The incorporation of this new agent to the traditional inflationary setting might represent…
Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential. For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this…
Methods and concepts for the study of phase transitions mediated by a time-dependent order-parameter field in curved spacetimes are discussed. A practical example is the derivation of an effective (quasi-)potential for the description of…
We obtain effective equations of inflationary dynamics for the mean inflaton and metric fields in the no-boundary and tunneling quantum states of the Universe. In the slow roll approximation (taking the form of the local Schwiger-DeWitt…
We investigate the quantum cosmological tunneling scenario for inflationary models. Within a path-integral approach, we derive the corresponding tunneling probability distribution. A sharp peak in this distribution can be interpreted as the…
Quantum geometry predicts that a universe evolves through an inflationary phase at small volume before exiting gracefully into a standard Friedmann phase. This does not require the introduction of additional matter fields with ad hoc…
I consider the generic model independent predictions of the theory of quantum cosmological perturbations. To describe the stage of cosmic inflation, where these perturbations are amplified, the hydrodynamical approch is used. The…
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…
We have explicitly demonstrated that scalar coupled Gauss-Bonnet gravity in four dimension can have non-trivial effects on the early inflationary stage of our universe. In particular, we have shown that the scalar coupled Gauss-Bonnet term…
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…
In loop quantum gravity, modifications to the geometrical density cause a self-interacting scalar field to accelerate away from a minimum of its potential. In principle, this mechanism can generate the conditions that subsequently lead to…
We study a class of non-local, action-based, and purely gravitational models. These models seek to describe a cosmology in which inflation is driven by a large, bare cosmological constant that is screened by the self-gravitation between the…
We investigate a nonsingular initial state of the Universe which leads to inflation naturally. The model is described by a scalar field with a quadratic potential in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity. The curvature of this initial…
General Relativity is extended into the quantum domain. A thought experiment is explored to derive a specific topological build-up for Planckian space-time. The presented arguments are inspired by Feynman's path integral for superposition…
While cosmological inflation can erase primordial inhomogeneities, it is possible that inflation may not begin in a significantly inhomogeneous universe. This issue is particularly pressing in multifield scenarios, where even the…