Related papers: Observing Quanta on a Cosmic Scale
It is conjectured that inflation, taking account of quantum gravity, leads to a discrete spectrum of cosmological perturbations, instead of the continuous Gaussian spectrum predicted by standard field theory in an unquantized background.…
According to the inflationary theory of cosmology, most elementary particles in the current universe were created during a period of reheating after inflation. In this work we self-consistently couple the Einstein-inflaton equations to a…
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…
I review in these lectures our present understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe, making emphasis on the most recent observations of the acceleration of the universe, the precise measurements of the microwave background…
Cosmological perturbations generated quantum-mechanically (as a particular case, during inflation) possess statistical properties of squeezed quantum states. The power spectra of the perturbations are modulated and the angular distribution…
We revise the statistical properties of the primordial cosmological density anisotropies that, at the time of matter radiation equality, seeded the gravitational development of large scale structures in the, otherwise, homogeneous and…
This article discusses density perturbations in inflationary models, offering a pedagogical description of how these perturbations are generated by quantum fluctuations in the early universe. A key feature of inflation is that that rapid…
If the large-angular-scale anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation is caused by the long-wavelength cosmological perturbations of quantum mechanical origin, they are, most likely, gravitational waves, rather than density…
The linear cosmological perturbation theory of an almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid universe is reconsidered and formally simplified by introducing new covariant and gauge-invariant variables with physical interpretations on…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
The usual account for the origin of cosmic structure during inflation is not fully satisfactory, as it lacks a physical mechanism capable of generating the inhomogeneity and anisotropy of our Universe, from an exactly homogeneous and…
Open Inflation has recently been suggested as a possible way out of the age crisis caused by observations of a large rate of expansion of the universe, in conflict with the existence of very old globular clusters. It proposes that our local…
The evidence for a Big Bang origin of the Universe is truly compelling, though its cause remains a complete mystery. As the cosmic spacetime is revealed to us with ever improving detail, however, we are beginning to refine the range of its…
The origin of cosmic angular momentum is a fundamental question in structure formation. We propose a novel mechanism that generates spatial angular momentum directly from quantum fluctuations during inflation. A spectator complex scalar…
It is widely accepted that the primordial universe experienced a brief period of accelerated expansion called inflation. This scenario provides a plausible solution to the horizon and flatness problems. However, the particle physics…
It is possible that the expansion of the universe began with an inflationary phase, in which the inflaton driving the process also was a Higgs field capable of stabilizing magnetic monopoles in a grand-unified gauge theory. If so, then the…
We revisit the quantum theory of a massive, minimally coupled scalar field, propagating on the Planck-era isotropic cosmological quantum spacetime which transitions to a classical spacetime in later times. The quantum effects modify the…
In the very early Universe matter can be described as a conformal invariant ultra-relativistic perfect fluid, which does not contribute, on classical level, to the evolution of the isotropic and homogeneous metric. However, in this…
Quantum gravity, as a fundamental theory of space-time, is expected to reveal how the universe may have started, perhaps during or before an inflationary epoch. It may then leave a potentially observable (but probably minuscule) trace in…
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…