Related papers: Towards geometric inflation: the cubic case
We display some simple cosmological solutions of gravity theories with quadratic Ricci curvature terms added to the Einstein-Hilbert lagrangian which exhibit anisotropic inflation. The Hubble expansion rates are constant and unequal in…
In these lectures, after a short introduction to cosmology, we discuss the supergravity embedding of higher curvature models of inflation. The supergravity description of such models is presented for the two different formulations of…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
The pre-inflationary evolution of the universe describes the beginning of the expansion from a static initial state, such that the Hubble parameter is initially zero, but increases to an asymptotic constant value, in which it could achieve…
We discuss a model of gravity coupled to a scalar field that admits exact cosmological solutions displaying an inflationary behavior at early times and a power-law expansion at late times.
Einsteinian cubic gravity is a higher-order gravitational theory in which the linearized field equations of motion match Einstein's equations on a maximally symmetric background. This theory allows the existence of a static and spherically…
We construct a new gravitational action which includes cubic curvature interactions and which provides a useful toy model for the holographic study of a three parameter family of four- and higher-dimensional CFT's. We also investigate the…
The early universe need not be described by an incomplete inflationary phase connected to a separate, more exotic prehistory. Recent results show that, within non-static FRW cosmology, only positive spatial curvature permits a nonsingular,…
Within the framework of geometric inflation, where the Friedmann equation is modified to incorporate an infinite series of higher curvature corrections, we describe the emergence of a de Sitter inflationary phase near the poles of an…
General relativity allows for inhomogeneous and anisotropic universes with finite action. By contrast, in quadratic gravity such solutions obtain infinite action and are thus eliminated. What remains are homogeneous and isotropic solutions…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…
The full set of cosmological observables coming from linear scalar and tensor perturbations of loop quantum cosmology is computed in the presence of inverse-volume corrections. Background inflationary solutions are found at linear order in…
In the recent years the quantization methods of Loop Quantum Gravity have been successfully applied to the homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-times. The resulting theory, called Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC), resolves…
We construct cubic gravity and its $f(P)$ extension and we investigate their early- and late-time cosmological applications. Cubic gravity is based on a particular invariant $P$, constructed from cubic contractions of the Riemann tensor,…
The main purpose of this paper is to advance a unified theory of dark matter, dark energy, and inflation first formulated in 2008. Our minimal affine extension of the GR has geodesics coinciding with the pseudo Riemannian ones, up to…
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…
Recently it was shown that essentially all regular black hole models constructed so far can be obtained as solutions of vacuum gravity equations, upon considering an infinite series of quasi-topological higher curvature corrections. Here we…
Spacetime wormholes are evidently an essential component of the construction of a time machine. Within the context of general relativity, such objects require, for their formation, exotic matter -- matter that violates at least one of the…
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
The generation of large curvature perturbations associated with the production of primordial black holes is studied in the context of a Higgs inflaton. To enable this amplification, we consider an inflationary model in which the tree-level…