Related papers: Inflation: Homogeneous Limit
Cosmological inflation, if it occurred, radically alters the picture of the `big bang', which would merely point to reheating at the end of inflation. Moreover, this reheating may be only local, so that inflation continues elsewhere and…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
These lectures provide a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the theory of cosmological perturbations generated during inflation which are thought to be the origin of structure in the universe.
One of the strongest arguments against the cosmological constant as an explanation of the current epoch of accelerated cosmic expansion is the existence of an earlier, dynamical acceleration, i.e. inflation. We examine the likelihood that…
The evolution of a scalar field is explored taking into account the presence of a background fluid in a positively curved Universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Though the mechanism that provides the initial conditions for…
Detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate the large-scale homogeneity of the universe. On very small scales, we observe however inhomogeneities such as galaxies, stars, planets and ourselves. In the context of hot…
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…
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…
Warm inflation is an interesting possibility of describing the early universe, whose basic feature is the absence, at least in principle, of a preheating or reheating phase. Here we analyze the dynamics of warm inflation generalizing the…
Models of cosmic inflation posit an early phase of accelerated expansion of the universe, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields in curved spacetime. Though detailed assumptions about fields and couplings vary across models,…
A brief review of the modern state of quantum cosmology is presented as a theory of quantum initial conditions for inflationary scenario. The no-boundary and tunneling states of the Universe are discussed as a possible source of probability…
The description of the accelerated phases for the current and primordial cosmos has been obtained in the framework of R\'{e}nyi cosmology. The results show that corrections to the Friedmann equations, originated from differences between…
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:…
The simplest explanation for early time acceleration (inflation) and the late time acceleration indicated by recent data is that they have a common origin. We investigate another generic cosmological implication of this possiblity, that the…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
The paper investigates the historical and contemporary pursuit-worthiness of cosmic inflation-the rationale for working on it (rather than necessarily the evidential support for claims to its approximate truth): what reasons existed, and…
Motivated by brane cosmology we solve the Einstein equations with a time dependent cosmological constant. Assuming that at an early epoch the vacuum energy scales as $1/logt $, we show that the universe passes from a fast growing phase…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenge---a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe. I then discuss the motivations…
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…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…