Related papers: The Early Universe
Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of…
In simple inflationary cosmological scenarios the near-exponential growth can be followed by a long period in which the Universe is dominated by the oscillating inflaton condensate. The condensate is initially almost homogeneous, but…
The primordial bispectrum has been considered in the past decade as a powerful probe of the physical processes taking place in the early Universe. Within the inflationary paradigm, the properties of the bispectrum are one of the keys that…
One of the main challenges in cosmology is to quantify how small density fluctuations at the recombination epoch z around 1000 evolved into the galaxies and the large-scale structure we observe in the universe today. This thesis discusses…
The early phase of cosmic evolution is still a great topic of interest to the cosmologist community. Especially the mechanism behind the origin of the Universe is yet to be resolved. Most people believe in the Big Bang models (singular…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. It is argued that essentially all inflationary models lead to (future-)eternal…
We discuss early cosmology in theories where the fundamental Planck mass is close to the TeV scale. In such theories the standard model fields are localized to a (3+1)-dimensional wall with n new transverse sub-millimeter sized spatial…
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…
A brief account is given of large-scale structure modelling based on the assumption that the initial perturbations arise from inflation. A recap is made of the implications of inflation for large-scale structure; under the widely applicable…
Cosmology and particle physics are deeply interrelated. Among the common problems are dark energy, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We discuss these problems in general terms, and concentrate on several particular…
Cosmological inflation provides the simplest and most promising mechanism for generating fluctuations for structure formation. Using powerful Hamilton-Jacobi methods, I will describe (1) how to compute density fluctuations and cosmic…
This essay is a nontechnical primer for a broader audience, in which I paint a broad-brush picture of modern cosmology. I begin by reviewing the evidence for the big bang, including the expansion of our Universe, the cosmic microwave…
In this paper, we investigate the evolution of the early universe within an emergent fractional cosmological framework. The underlying formulation is conceptually rooted in generalized measure constructions, closely related to fractal…
In this paper we present an informal description of the Cyclic Inflation scenario which allows our universe to "start" with a negative potential energy, inflate, and then gracefully exit to a positive potential energy universe. We discuss…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. I describe the quantum origin of density perturbations, giving a heuristic derivation of…
In this paper it is suggested that inclusion of mutual gravitational interactions among the particles in the early dense universe can lead to a 'pre-big bang' scenario, with particle masses greater than the Planck mass implying an…
We review why the search for a causal explanation of the large scale properties of the universe supports the idea that an extended period of accelerated expansion, called inflation, preceded primordial nucleosynthesis. As a consequence of…
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…
Our current understanding of the Universe is established through the pristine measurements of structure in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the distribution and shapes of galaxies tracing the large scale structure (LSS) of the…
Observations indicate that the universe is effectively flat, but they do not rule out a closed universe. The role of positive curvature is negligible at late times, but can be crucial in the early universe. In particular, positive curvature…