Related papers: Ekpyrotic Cosmology with a Zero-Shear S-Brane
We propose a mechanism borrowed from string theory which yields a non-singular transition from a phase of Ekpyrotic contraction to the expanding phase of Standard Big Bang cosmology. The same mechanism converts the initial vacuum spectrum…
In recent work, two of us proposed a nonsingular Ekpyrotic cosmology making use of an S-brane which forms at the end of the phase of Ekpyrotic contraction. This S-Brane mediates a transition between contraction and expansion. Graviitational…
We analyze a general mechanism for producing a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological curvature perturbations during a contracting phase preceding a big bang, that can be entirely described using 4d effective field theory. The…
In this paper, we present a new scenario of the early Universe that contains a pre big bang Ekpyrotic phase. By combining this with a ghost condensate, the theory explicitly violates the null energy condition without developing any…
We consider the four-dimensional effective field theory which has been used in previous studies of perturbations in the Ekpyrotic Universe, and discuss the spectrum of cosmological fluctuations induced on large scales by quantum…
We consider the ekpyrotic paradigm in the context of loop quantum cosmology. In loop quantum cosmology the classical big-bang singularity is resolved due to quantum gravity effects, and so the contracting ekpyrotic branch of the universe…
We present a nonsingular bouncing cosmology using single scalar field matter with non-trivial potential and non-standard kinetic term. The potential sources a dynamical attractor solution with Ekpyrotic contraction which washes out small…
Space-filling S-branes can mediate a transition between a contracting and an expanding universe in the Einstein frame. Following up on previous work that uncovered such bouncing solutions in the context of weakly coupled thermal…
Ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies provide theories of the very early and of the very late universe. In these models, the big bang is described as a collision of branes - and thus the big bang is not the beginning of time. Before the big…
We investigate the bounce realization in the framework of DHOST cosmology, focusing on the relation with observables. We perform a detailed analysis of the scalar and tensor perturbations during the Ekpyrotic contraction phase, the bounce…
We present a bouncing cosmology which evolves from the contracting to the expanding phase in a smooth way, without developing instabilities or pathologies and remaining in the regime of validity of 4d effective field theory. A nearly scale…
One of the central points of the ekpyrotic cosmological scenario based on Horava-Witten theory is that we live on a negative tension brane. However, the tension of the visible brane is positive in the usual HW phenomenology with stronger…
We consider the construction of nonsingular Pre-Big-Bang and Ekpyrotic type cosmological models realized by the addition to the action of specific higher-order terms stemming from quantum corrections. We study models involving general…
We address the perturbation power spectrum generated in the recently proposed ekpyrotic scenario by Khoury et al. The issue has been raised recently by Lyth who used the conventional method based on a conserved variable in the large-scale…
For bouncing cosmologies such as the ekpyrotic/cyclic scenarios we show that it is possible to make predictions for density perturbations which are independent of the details of the bouncing phase. This can be achieved, as in inflationary…
Cosmological models involving a bounce from a contracting to an expanding universe can address the standard cosmological puzzles and generate "primordial" density perturbations without the need for inflation. Some such models, in particular…
In Pre-Big-Bang and in Ekpyrotic Cosmology, perturbations on cosmological scales today are generated from quantum vacuum fluctuations during a phase when the Universe is contracting (viewed in the Einstein frame). The backgrounds studied to…
It has recently been shown that a Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology can provide a causal mechanism for generating a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of scalar metric fluctuations, without the need for an intervening period of de Sitter…
We study the cosmology induced on a brane probing a warped throat region in a Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory. For the case of a BPS D3-brane probing the Klebanov-Strassler warped deformed conifold, the cosmology…
Ekpyrotic models and their cyclic extensions solve the standard cosmological flatness, horizon and homogeneity puzzles by postulating a slowly contracting phase of the universe prior to the big bang. This ekpyrotic phase also manages to…