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Inflationary cosmology attempts to provide a natural explanation for the flatness and homogeneity of the observable universe. In the context of reversible (unitary) evolution, this goal is difficult to satisfy, as Liouville's theorem…
We often find in the literature solutions to the Friedmann and fluid equations for simple cosmological models during the matter, radiation or cosmological constant dominated epochs. However no solutions appear for the inflationary era…
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
Supersymmetric hybrid inflation is an exquisite framework to connect inflationary cosmology to particle physics at the scale of grand unification. Ending in a phase transition associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking, it can naturally…
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…
The linear cosmological perturbation theory of almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid and scalar field universes is reconsidered and formally simplified. Using the existence of a covariant conserved quantity on large perturbation…
Inflationary models are generally credited with explaining the large scale homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe as well as accounting for the origin of structure (i.e., the deviations from exact homogeneity) in our universe.…
A remarkable property of modern cosmology is that it allows for a special case of symmetry, consisting in the possibility of describing the early-time acceleration (inflation) and the late-time acceleration using the same theoretical…
One of the fundamental problems of modern cosmology is to explain the origin of all the matter and radiation in the Universe today. The inflationary model predicts that the oscillations of the scalar field at the end of inflation will…
In a previous paper we proposed a new approach to the beginning of inflation -- a lingering universe. The universe begins in a lingering state with a nearly vanishing Hubble parameter. This calls into question the absolute age of the…
Recent observations of Type Ia supernovae provide evidence for the acceleration of our universe, which leads to the possibility that the universe is entering an inflationary epoch. We simulate it under a ``big bounce'' model, which contains…
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
We consider the superpotential formalism to describe the evolution of scalar fields during inflation, generalizing it to include the case with non-canonical kinetic terms. We provide a characterization of the attractor behaviour of the…
We develop a physics-facing version of the persistence/transition-variety framework for scalar-field cosmology, tailored to inflationary dynamics. The guiding idea is that observationally viable inflationary models are often best understood…
On the basis of a semi-classical analysis of vacuum energy in an expanding spacetime, we describe a non-singular cosmological model in which the vacuum density decays with time, with a concomitant production of matter. During an infinitely…
We investigate the inflationary universe in a theory where two scalar fields non-minimally coupling to the scalar curvature and an extra $R^2$ term exist and the conformal invariance is broken. In particular, the slow-roll inflation is…
We present a novel theory of the very early universe which addresses the traditional horizon and flatness problems of big bang cosmology and predicts a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations. Unlike inflation, this scenario requires no…
We develop a formalism for calculating soft limits of $n$-point inflationary correlation functions using separate universe techniques. Our method naturally allows for multiple fields and leads to an elegant diagrammatic approach. As an…
If we interpret the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the Hubble horizon as thermodynamic entropy, then the entanglement entropy of the superhorizon modes of curvature perturbation entangled with the subhorizon modes will exceed the…