Related papers: Challenges for Inflationary Cosmology
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
Due to the quasi-exponential red-shifting which occurs during an inflationary period in the very early Universe, wavelengths which at the present time correspond to cosmological lengths are in general sub-Planckian during the early stages…
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:…
This is a pedagogical introduction to early cosmology and the host of fundamental physics involved in it (particle physics, grand unification and general relativity). Inflation and the inflaton field are the central theme of this review.…
The leading account of several salient observable features of our universe today is provided by the theory of cosmic inflation. But an important and thus far intractable question is whether inflation is generic, or whether it is finely…
We propose a new method for identifying new physics imprints on present observational data in cosmology whereby signatures of string theory are clearly distinguished from imprints of possible features on the inflaton potential. Our method…
In order to draw out the essential behavior of the universe, investigations of early universe cosmology often reduce the complex system to a simple integrable system. Inflationary models are of this kind as they focus on simple scalar field…
We compute the amount of inflation required to solve the horizon problem of cosmology in the pre-big-bang scenario. First we give a quick overview of string cosmology as developed by Veneziano and collaborators. Then we show that the amount…
`Old' String Theory is a theory of one-dimensional extended objects, whose vibrations correspond to excitations of various target-space field modes including gravity. In these lectures I will give an introduction to low-energy Effective…
We review applications of string theory to cosmology, from primordial times to the present-day accelerated expansion. Starting with a brief overview of cosmology and string compactifications, we discuss in detail moduli stabilisation,…
We discuss relationship between inflation and various models of production of density inhomogeneities due to strings, global monopoles, textures and other topological and non-topological defects. Neither of these models leads to a…
We present new exact cosmological inhomogeneous solutions for gravity coupled to a scalar field in a general framework specified by the parameter $\lambda$. The equations of motion (and consequently the solutions) in this framework…
In the present work we discuss inflation, dark matter and cosmological evolution in the context of the brane-world scenario. Being string theory inspired, the brane-world models provide corrections to the General Relativity, which is…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
The swampland conjectures from String theory have had very interesting implications for cosmology and particularly for Inflation. It has been shown that the single field inflationary models in a GR based cosmology are in unavoidable…
We show that it is possible to combine an early phase of String Gas Cosmology which can explain the origin of the observed structures on cosmological scales with a short later period of power law inflation which creates spatial flatness.…
Starting with a study of the cosmological solution to the Einstein equations for the internal spacetime of an extreme supermassive cosmic string kink, and by evaluating the probability measure for the formation of such a kink in…
An overview is presented of some cosmological aspects of string theory. Recent developments are emphasised, especially the attempts to derive inflation or alternatives to inflation from the dynamics of branes in string theory. Time…