Related papers: Inflation: a quantum laboratory on cosmological sc…
Inflation plays a central role in our current understanding of the universe. According to the standard viewpoint, the homogeneous and isotropic mode of the inflaton field drove an early phase of nearly exponential expansion of the universe,…
In the standard inflationary paradigm, cosmological density perturbations are generated as quantum fluctuations in the early Universe, but then undergo a quantum-to-classical transition. A key role in this transition is played by squeezing…
Cosmic inflation may exhibit stochastic periods during which quantum fluctuations dominate over the semi-classical evolution. Extracting observables in these regimes is a notoriously difficult program as quantum randomness makes them fully…
The particle production process is reviewed, through which cosmic inflation can produce a scale invariant superhorizon spectrum of perturbations of suitable fields starting from their quantum fluctuations. Afterwards, in the context of the…
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
Detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate the large-scale homogeneity of the universe. On very small scales, we observe however inhomogeneities such as galaxies, stars, planets and ourselves. In the context of hot…
Certain models of cosmic inflation produce strong cosmological perturbations at short length scales, which may later collapse into primordial black holes. To find the statistics of these strong perturbations and the ensuing black holes, it…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
Based on the conventional metric tensor and driven by a nearly constant energy density, cosmic inflation, characterized by a remarkably accelerated expansion, was proposed as an early epoch in the Universe. The energy density is typically…
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems,…
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 early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
According to the theory of cosmic inflation, the large scale structures observed in our Universe (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, Cosmic Background Microwave - CMB - anisotropy ...) are of quantum mechanical origin. They are nothing but…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
We investigate the entanglement due to geometric corrections in particle creation during inflation. To do so, we propose a single-field inflationary scenario, nonminimally coupled to the scalar curvature of spacetime. We require particle…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
In a series of five lectures I review inflationary cosmology. I begin with a description of the initial conditions problems of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology and then explain how inflation, an early period of accelerated…
The standard model of cosmology assumes a homogeneous and isotropic universe that undergoes a period of exponential expansion very early on, named inflation. This stretches quantum fluctuations from the onset of inflation to cosmological…