Related papers: Inflation and Cosmological Perturbations
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…
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…
Alan Guth introduced cosmologists to inflation at the 1980 Texas Symposium. Since, inflation has had almost as much impact on cosmology as the big-bang model itself. However, unlike the big-bang model, it has little observational support.…
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 next decade will feature an abundance of novel cosmological data, while many fundamental questions about inflation remain. Given this, there is ample need for maximally efficient calculations, especially in non-standard scenarios for…
Stephen Hawking's contributions to the understanding of gravity, black holes and cosmology were truly immense. They began with the singularity theorems in the 1960s followed by his discovery that black holes have an entropy and consequently…
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
These lectures are intended to give a pedagogical introduction to the main current picture of the very early universe. After elementary reviews of general relativity and of the standard Big Bang model, the following subjects are discussed:…
A general overview of the history and present status of inflationary cosmology is given. Recent developments discussed in this paper include the hybrid inflation scenario, the theory of reheating, and the theory of inflating tolopogical…
According to the theory of cosmic inflation, the large scale structures observed in our Universe (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, Cosmic Background Microwave - CMB - anisotropy ...) are of quantum mechanical origin. They are nothing but…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
The standard big bang cosmological model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions are summarized. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with…
After a brief review of the theory of cosmological perturbations, I highlight some recent progress in the area of reheating in inflationary cosmology, focusing in particular on parametric amplification of super-Hubble cosmological…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenges-developing a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe and identifying the…