Related papers: Transitioning from a bounce to $R^2$ inflation
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction. The second is an…
We examine the cosmological sector of a gauge theory of gravity based on the SO(4,2) conformal group of Minkowski space. We allow for conventional matter coupled to the spacetime metric as well as matter coupled to the field that gauges…
In this paper, we investigate a scenario of variable gravity and apply it to the unified description of inflation and late time cosmic acceleration dubbed quintessential inflation. The scalar field called "cosmon" which in this model…
In this work, we investigate a model of bounce inflation driven by the Higgs field. The Higgs field is non-minimally coupled with gravity through the Gauss-Bonnet term. We show that the Higgs field could drive a power-law contraction…
A nonsingular bouncing cosmology in which the scales of interest today exit the Hubble radius in a matter-dominated contracting phase yields an alternative to inflation for producing a scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic cosmological…
We propose that several of the anomalies that have been observed at large angular scales in the CMB have a common origin in a cosmic bounce that took place before the inflationary era. The bounce introduces a new physical scale in the…
We investigate the $\phi^2$ inflationary model in the Bianchi-I spacetime using effective spacetime description of loop quantum cosmology to understand the issues of the resolution of initial singularity, isotropization, effect of…
A continuous process of creation of particles is investigated as a possible connection between the inflationary stage with late cosmic acceleration. In this model, the inflationary era occurs due to a continuous and fast process of creation…
In simple inflationary cosmological scenarios the near-exponential growth can be followed by a long period in which the Universe is dominated by the oscillating inflaton condensate. The condensate is initially almost homogeneous, but…
The observed temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background can be traced back to primordial curvature modes that are sourced by adiabatic and/or entropic matter perturbations. In this paper, we explore the entropic mechanism…
The inflationary scenario, which states that the early universe underwent a brief but dramatic period of accelerated spatial expansion, has become the current paradigm of early universe cosmology. Although inflationary cosmology has its…
I describe the features and general properties of bouncing models and the evolution of cosmological perturbations on such backgrounds. I will outline possible observational consequences of the existence of a bounce in the primordial…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
We consider an inflationary universe model in which the phase of accelerated expansion was preceded by a non-singular bounce and a period of contraction which involves a phase of deceleration. We follow fluctuations which exit the Hubble…
We propose a 3 + 1 dimensional model of gravity which results in inflation at early times, followed by radiation- and matter-dominated epochs and a subsequent acceleration at late times. Both the inflation and late time acceleration are…
In the Einstein frame picture of Starobinky's $R^2$ inflation model, cosmic inflation is driven by a slowly rolling inflaton field, called scalaron, and followed by a coherently oscillating scalaron phase. Since the scalaron oscillates…
The aim of this paper is to show, that the 'oscillating universe' is a viable alternative to inflation. We remind that this model provides a natural solution to the flatness or entropy and to the horizon problem of standard cosmology. We…
A new idea of deriving a cosmological term from an underlying theory has been proposed in order to explain the expansion history of the universe. We obtain the scale factor with this derived cosmological term and demonstrate that it…
We investigate the corrections to the inflationary cosmological dynamics due to a $R^2$ term in the Palatini formulation which may arise as quantum corrections to the effective Lagrangian in early universe. We found that the standard…