Related papers: The Big Bang: Origins and initial conditions from …
We develop a possible cosmology for a Universe with n additional spatial dimensions of variable scale, and an associated scalar field, the radion, which is distinct from the field responsible for inflation, the inflaton. Based on a…
Observational cosmology is in its "golden age" with a vast amount of recent data on the distribution of matter and light in the universe. This data can be used to probe theories of the very early universe. It is small amplitude cosmological…
The growing cosmological interest of different entropy functions (like the Tsallis entropy, the R\'{e}nyi entropy, the Barrow entropy, the Sharma-Mittal entropy, the Kaniadakis entropy and the Loop Quantum gravity entropy) naturally raises…
For two decades the hot big-bang model has been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not addressed by the standard cosmology and…
We study particle production and the corresponding entropy increase in the context of cosmology with dynamical vacuum. We focus on the particular form that has been called "running vacuum model" (RVM), which is known to furnish a successful…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
Observational Cosmology has indeed made very rapid progress in recent years. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
Recent cosmic microwave background observations favor low energy scale inflationary models in a closed universe. However, onset of inflation in such models for a closed universe is known to be severely problematic. In particular, such a…
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…
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 beautiful scenario of pre-big-bang cosmology is appealling not only because it is more or less derived from string theory, but also because it separates clearly the problem of the initial conditions for the universe from that of high…
Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of…
We develop a cosmological model based on a quadratic equation of state p/c^2=-(\alpha+1){\rho^2}/{\rho_P}+\alpha\rho-(\alpha+1)\rho_{\Lambda} (where \rho_P is the Planck density and \rho_{\Lambda} the cosmological density) "unifying" vacuum…
I give a brief review of the status of research on the nature of initial conditions required to obtain a period of cosmological inflation. It is shown that there is good evidence that in the case of large field models, the inflationary…
Despite its great successes in accounting for the current observations, the so called `standard' model of cosmology faces a number of fundamental unresolved questions. Paramount among these are those relating to the nature of the origin of…
Warm inflation has normalized two ideas in cosmology, that in the early universe the initial primordial density perturbations generally could be of classical rather than quantum origin and that during inflation, particle production from…
Following a paper by Berman and Marinho Jr (2001), where it was established an equation of state (p=-(1/3)rho), for the very early Universe, under which, Einstein's equations with lambda=0, render a scale-factor proportional to the time…
The purpose of these lectures is to give a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the production of primordial perturbations, as well as a review of some of the latest developments in this domain. After a short introduction, we review…
The standard theory of cosmic structure formation posits that the present-day rich structure of the Universe developed through gravitational amplification of tiny matter density fluctuations generated in its very early history. Recent…