Related papers: Cosmology and Astrophysics
The following review presents an attempt to discuss various issues of current interest in Observational Cosmology, the selection of which as well as the emphasis given, reflects my own preference and biases. After presenting some…
I review the current status of the theory of Cosmic Inflation. My discussion covers the motivation and implementation of the idea, as well as an analysis of recent successes and open questions. There is a special discussion of the physics…
I give a general review of inflationary cosmology and of its present status, in view of the 2013 data release by the Planck satellite. A specific emphasis is given to the new broad class of theories, the cosmological attractors, which have…
This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its…
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…
The Pre-Big Bang cosmology inspired generations of cosmologists in attempts to cure the initial Big Bang singularity using a fundamental length scale as proposed by String Theory. The existence of a phase of collapse/inflation with…
The shortcomings of the Standard Big Bang Cosmological Model as well as their resolution in the context of inflationary cosmology are discussed. The inflationary scenario and the subsequent oscillation and decay of the inflaton field are…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
Recent advances in observational cosmology are changing the way we view the nature of time. In general relativity, the freedom in choosing a time hypersurface has hampered the implementation of the theory. Fortunately, Hamilton-Jacobi…
In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics will be made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of these links. Our…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
In a series of five lectures I review inflationary cosmology. I begin with a description of the initial conditions problems of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology and then explain how inflation, an early period of accelerated…
Small fluctuations around homogeneous and isotropic expanding backgrounds are the main object of study in cosmology. Their origin and evolution is sensitive to the physical processes that happen during inflation and in the late Universe. As…
We critically review the role of cosmological moduli in determining the post-inflationary history of the universe. Moduli are ubiquitous in string and M-theory constructions of beyond the Standard Model physics, where they parametrize the…
Extended inflation is a promising new approach to implementing the inflationary universe scenario. This paper reviews recent advances including a new, more robust mechanism for ending extended inflation, a new prediction for the density…
One of the major objectives of this dissertation has been the seek for inflationary models, coming from supersymmetric theories, which are compatible with recent cosmological data and, more specifically, with measurements of the spectral…
The network of cosmological tests is tight enough now to show that the relativistic Big Bang cosmology is a good approximation to what happened as the universe expanded and cooled through light element production and evolved to the present.…
A short introduction to structure formation is given, followed by a discussion of the possible characteristics of the initial perturbations assuming a generic inflationary origin. Observational data related to large-scale structure and the…
The inflationary paradigm provides a robust description of the peculiar initial conditions which are required for the success of the Hot Big Bang model of cosmology, as well as of the recent precision measurements of temperature…
Loop quantum cosmology provides an efficient framework to study the evolution of the Universe beyond the classical Big Bang paradigm. Because of holonomy corrections, the singularity is replaced by a "bounce". The dynamics of the background…