Related papers: String Cosmology and Inflation
We propose a mechanism for solving the horizon and entropy problems of standard cosmology which does not make use of cosmological inflation. Crucial ingredients of our scenario are brane gases, extra dimensions, and a confining potential…
This is a short review of string cosmology. We wish to connect string-scale physics as closely as possible to observables accessible to current or near-future experiments. Our possible best hope to do so is a description of inflation in…
Brane inflation is a specific realization of the inflationary universe scenario in the early universe within the brane world framework in string theory. The naturalness and robustness of this realistic scenario is explained. Its predictions…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
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…
A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that…
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
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.…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
We study the cosmological evolution of a type-0 string theory by employing non-criticality, which may be induced by fluctuations of the D3 brane worlds. We check the consistency of the approach to O(alpha ') in the corresponding…
We consider the low-energy effective string action in four dimensions including the leading order-$\alpha'$ terms. An exact homogeneous solution is obtained. It represents a non-singular expanding cosmological model in which the tensor…
The most important criteria for a successful inflation are to explain the observed temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation, and exiting inflation in a vacuum where it can excite the Standard Model quarks and…
We build a number of integrable one--scalar spatially flat cosmologies, which play a natural role in inflationary scenarios, examine their behavior in several cases and draw from them some general lessons on this type of systems, whose…
We find a unique way of realizing inflation through cyclic phases in an universe with negative vacuum energy. According to the second law of thermodynamics entropy monotonically increases from cycle to cycle, typically by a constant factor.…
String theory abounds with light scalar fields (the dilaton and various moduli) which create a host of observational problems, and notably some serious cosmological difficulties similar to the ones associated with the Polonyi field in the…
Inflation is now a basic ingredient of the modern cosmology. After reviewing the basic characteristics of inflation, we briefly discuss inflation in string and brane theories, focusing on the problem of the exit from inflation in these…
Brane inflation in superstring theory predicts that cosmic strings (but not domain walls or monopoles) are produced towards the end of the inflationary epoch. Here, we discuss the production, the spectrum and the evolution of such cosmic…
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…
When Inflation is embedded in a fundamental theory, such as string theory, it typically begins when the Universe is already substantially larger than the fundamental scale [such as the one defined by the string length scale]. This is…