Related papers: Inflation: Homogeneous Limit
When did the universe thermalize? In this talk I review the status of this issue and its importance in establishing the expected properties of dark matter, the growth of large-scale structure, and the viability of inflation models when…
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…
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…
We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…
We show how to derive several families of accelerating universe solutions to an Einstein-Aether gravity theory. These solutions provide possible descriptions of inflationary behaviour in the early universe and late-time cosmological…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
Current observations of Type Ia supernovae provide evidence for cosmic acceleration out to a redshift of $z \lsim 1$, leading to the possibility that the universe is entering an inflationary epoch. However, inflation can take place only if…
Many pedagogical introductions of cosmological inflation are effective due to the simplicity of the relevant equations. Here an analytic solution of the cosmological equations is presented and used as an example to discuss fundamental…
This study reviews the advances made in inflationary theory, especially regarding the seeming disparity between inflation energy and dark energy, and their significance to cosmic evolution as a whole. I attempt to connect the two sources of…
Quintessential inflation provides a unified description of inflation and dark energy in terms of a single scalar degree of freedom, the cosmon. We present here a comprehensive overview of this appealing paradigm, highlighting its key…
We consider the fate of the observable universe in the light of the discovery of a dark energy component to the cosmic energy budget. We extend results for a cosmological constant to a general dark energy component and examine the…
This note makes a self-contained exposition of the basic facts of big bang cosmology as they relate to inflation. The fundamental problems with that model are then explored. A quartic scalar potential model of inflation is evaluated which…
These lectures provide an introductory review of big bang cosmology. I discuss the expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, summarizing the observational evidence which has led to its adoption as the `standard' cosmological model and…
While there is no consensus about the history of time since the beginning, in this paper I will discuss some possibilities. We have a pretty clear picture of cosmic history from the electroweak phase transition through the time of…
We discuss two important modifications of inflationary paradigm. Until very recently we believed that inflation automatically leads to flatness of the universe, Omega = 1. We also thought that post-inflationary phase transitions in GUTs may…
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…
A scenario with two subsequent periods of inflationary expansion in the very early universe is examined. The model is based on a potential motivated by symmetries being found in field theory at high energy. For various parameter sets of the…
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…
The present-day Universe appears to be homogeneous on very large scales. Yet when the casual structure of the early Universe is considered, it becomes apparent that the early Universe must have been highly inhomogeneous. The current…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…