Related papers: Pointer states for primordial fluctuations in infl…
We study the generation of primordial fluctuations in pure de Sitter inflation where the quantum scalar field dynamics are governed by polymer (not Schrodinger) quantization. This quantization scheme is related to, but distinct from, the…
During the inflationary phase of the early universe, quantum fluctuations in the vacuum generate particles as they stretch beyond the Hubble length. These fluctuations are thought to result in the density fluctuations and gravitational…
A Schroedinger picture analysis of time dependent quantum oscillators, in a manner of Guth and Pi, clearly identifies two physical mechanisms for possible decoherence of vacuum fluctuations in early universe: turning of quantum oscillators…
We propose an operational definition of the entropy of cosmological perturbations based on a truncation of the hierarchy of Green functions. The value of the entropy is unambiguous despite gauge invariance and the renormalization procedure.…
We study thermally induced density perturbations during inflation. This scenario is characterized by two thermodynamical conditions: (1) The primordial perturbations originate in the epoch when the inflationary universe contains a…
Inflationary cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin generically interact with all degrees of freedom present in the early Universe. Therefore, they must be viewed as an open quantum system in interaction with an…
The density fluctuations that we observe in the universe today are thought to originate from quantum fluctuations produced during a phase of the early universe called inflation. By evolving a wavefunction describing two coupled Fourier…
We use the 3+1 formalism of numerical relativity to investigate the robustness of Starobinsky and Higgs inflation to inhomogeneous initial conditions, in the form of either field gradient or kinetic energy density. Sub-Hubble and…
We show how the quantum-to-classical transition of the cosmological fluctuations produced during an inflationary stage can be described using the consistent histories approach. We identify the corresponding histories in the limit of…
We consider an ultra-light scalar field with a mass comparable to (or lighter than) the Hubble parameter of the present universe, and calculate the time evolution of the energy-momentum tensor of the vacuum fluctuations generated during and…
In the standard inflationary paradigm the inhomogeneities observed in the CMB arise from quantum fluctuations of an initially homogeneous and isotropic vacuum state. This picture suffers from two well-known weaknesses. First, it assumes…
It is proposed that if quantum states of space-time are coherent on null surfaces, holographic Planck-scale fluctuations of inflationary horizons dominate the formation of primordial scalar curvature perturbations. It is shown that the…
Inflation has by-far set itself as one of the prime ideas in the current cosmological models that seemingly has an answer for every observed phenomenon in cosmology. More importantly, it serves as a bridge between the early quantum…
Transition to the semiclassical behaviour and the decoherence process for inhomogeneous perturbations generated from the vacuum state during an inflationary stage in the early Universe are considered both in the Heisenberg and the…
We show how the quantum to classical transition of the cosmological fluctuations produced during inflation can be described by means of the influence functional and the master equation. We split the inflaton field into the system-field…
We consider the classical fluctuations of the gravitational constant generated by bubbles in the inflationary universe. For extended inflation, we demonstrate numerically how and how large fluctuations are produced during bubble expansion.…
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…
I study the gauge-invariant fluctuations of the metric during inflation. In the infrared sector the metric fluctuations can be represented by a coarse-grained field. We can write a Schroedinger equation for the coarse-grained metric…
An analysis of the decoherence of quantum fluctuations shows that production of classical adiabatic density perturbations may not take place in models of power-law inflation with power 1< p < 3. Some consequences for models of extended…
We study the effect of quantum decoherence on the inflationary cosmological perturbations. This process might imprint specific observational signatures revealing the quantum nature of the inflationary mechanism being related to the…