Related papers: Inflationary Cosmology: Status and Prospects
This is a personal account of the early work that led to what is now known as the ``preheating stage" of inflationary cosmology. The broader applicability of the underlying instability mechanisms in cosmology are indicated.
This note makes a self-contained exposition of the basic facts of big bang cosmology as they relate to inflation. The fundamental problems with that model are then explored. A quartic scalar potential model of inflation is evaluated which…
The inflationary scenario is not the only paradigm of early universe cosmology which is consistent with current observations. General criteria will be presented which any successful early universe model must satisfy. Various ways, including…
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
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…
These lectures were addressed to nonspecialists willing to learn some basic facts, approaches, tools and observational evidence which conform modern cosmology. The aim is also to try to complement the many excellent treatises that exists on…
I discuss, through a few examples, how observational cosmology can provide insights on hypothetical fundamental physics phenomena or mechanisms, such as Grand Unified Theory, Superstring alternatives to the inflation paradigm, and inflation…
This is a short article on inflation, the geometry of the Universe, and the cosmic microwave background that appeared as a Perspective in Science magazine.
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
A scenario where inflation emerges as a response to protect the holographic principle is described. A two fluid model in a closed universe inflation picture is assumed, and a possible explanation for secondary exponential expansion phases…
We review the connection between inflationary models and observations and concentrate to describe models based on softly broken supersymmetry, in particular running mass models, and their predictions. We then present a fit of the spectral…
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
Attempts to apply quantum collapse theories to Cosmology and cosmic inflation are reviewed. These attempts are motivated by the fact that the theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin suffers from the single outcome…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution…
Following recent studies of Ford, we suggest -- in the framework of general relativity -- an inflationary cosmological model with the self-interacting spinning matter. A generalization of the standard fluid model is discussed and estimates…
In this paper we present the problem of quantum to classical transition of quantum fluctuations during inflation and in particular the question of evolution of entanglement. After a general introduction, three specific very recent works are…
Inflationary cosmology has made significant strides in understanding the physics driving the rapid expansion of the early universe. However, many inflation models with diverse potential shapes present analysis, comparison, and…
Inflation as the leading paradigm depicting the very early universe physics could leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Using currently available CMB observations, we give the tightest constraints on inflation…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…