Related papers: Some Key Issues Confronting Inflationary Cosmology
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…
Cosmology is very exciting for three reasons. There is a very successful standard model - the hot big bang - which describes the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec onward. There are bold ideas, foremost among them are inflation and…
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…
Inflation produces super-horizon sized perturbations that ultimately return within the horizon and are thought to form the seeds of all observed large scale structure in the Universe. But inflationary predictions can only be compared with…
The early cosmic inflation, when taken along with the recent observations that the universe is currently dominated by a low density vacuum energy, leads to at least two potential problems which modern cosmology must address. First, there is…
Inflationary theory is already 20 years old, and it is impossible to describe all of its versions and implications in a short talk. I will concentrate on several subjects which I believe to be most important. First of all, I will give a…
After 25 years of its existence, inflationary theory gradually becomes the standard cosmological paradigm. However, we still do not know which of the many versions of inflationary cosmology will be favored by the future observational data.…
The purpose of the paper, of which this is part II, is to review, clarify, and critically analyse modern mathematical cosmology. The emphasis is upon mathematical objects and structures, rather than numerical computations. Part II provides…
An introduction to modern theories for the origin of structure in the Universe is given. After a brief review of the growth of cosmological perturbations in an expanding Universe and a summary of some important observational results, the…
Attempts to apply quantum collapse theories to Cosmology and cosmic inflation are reviewed. These attempts are motivated by the fact that the theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin suffers from the single outcome…
Warm inflation has normalized two ideas in cosmology, that in the early universe the initial primordial density perturbations generally could be of classical rather than quantum origin and that during inflation, particle production from…
We are on the verge of the first precision testing of the inflationary cosmology as a model for the origin of structure in the Universe. I review the key predictions of inflation which can be used as observational tests, in the sense of…
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…
These lectures cover the basics of inflationary models for the early universe, concentrating particularly on the generation of density fluctuations from scalar-field dynamics. The subsequent gravitational dynamics of these fluctuations in…
The pre-big-bang cosmology inspired by superstring theories has been suggested as an alternative to slow-roll inflation. We analyze, in both the Jordan and Einstein frames, the effect of spatial curvature on this scenario and show that too…
An exploratory study of the cosmology of moduli in string theory. Moduli are argued to be natural inflaton fields and lead to a robust inflationary cosmology in which inflation takes place at the top of domain walls. The amplitude of…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…
The next decade will feature an abundance of novel cosmological data, while many fundamental questions about inflation remain. Given this, there is ample need for maximally efficient calculations, especially in non-standard scenarios for…
Focus of these lectures is the challenge of explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. The interplay between quantum field theory and classical general relativity has given rise to several interesting cosmological models which…
An anthropic understanding of the cosmological constant requires that the vacuum energy at late time scans from one patch of the universe to another. If the vacuum energy during inflation also scans, the various patches of the universe…