Related papers: Large-scale Structure from Quantum Fluctuations in…
Inflation drives quantum fluctuations beyond the Hubble horizon, freezing them out before the small-scale modes re-enter during the radiation dominated epoch, and subsequently decay, while large-scale modes re-enter later during the matter…
We propose that cosmological density perturbation may originate from passive fluctuations of the inflaton, which are induced by colored quantum noise due to the coupling of the inflaton to the quantum environment. At small scales, the…
Various mechanisms have been suggested for the formation of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), and this thesis focuses on the standard mechanism based on the critical collapse of cosmological fluctuations. The underlying idea is that during…
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 inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
Research over the past 25 years has led to the view that the rich tapestry of present-day cosmic structure arose during the first instants of creation, where weak ripples were imposed on the otherwise uniform and rapidly expanding…
We propose a model of cosmological evolution of the early and late Universe which is consistent with observational data and naturally explains the origin of inflation and dark energy. We show that the de Sitter accelerated expansion of the…
We study the formation of structure in the Universe assuming that dark matter can be described by a scalar field $\tilde{\Phi}$ with a potential $V(\Phi)=-\mathfrak{m}^{2}\tilde{\Phi}^{2}/2+\lambda\tilde{\Phi}^4/4$. We derive the evolution…
Inflationary cosmology has, in the last few years,received a strong dose of support from observations. The fact that the fluctuation spectrum can be extracted from the inflationary scenario through an analysis that involves quantum field…
According to the theory of cosmic inflation, the large scale structures observed in our Universe (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, Cosmic Background Microwave - CMB - anisotropy ...) are of quantum mechanical origin. They are nothing but…
Inflation arises in supersymmetric grand unified theories (susy GUTs) without fine tuning and cosmic strings usually form at the end of inflation. Hence both strings and inflation contribute to the density perturbations in the very early…
The physical basis of the modern cosmological inflationary models with baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter and energy implies such predictions of particle theory, that, in turn, apply to cosmology for their test. It makes physics of…
Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role in cosmology. Besides precise determination of various parameters of the `standard' cosmological model, observations have also established…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
There is something missing in our understanding of the origin of the seeds of Cosmic Structuture. The fact that the fluctuation spectrum can be extracted from the inflationary scenario through an analysis that involves quantum field theory…
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…
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…
We review some theoretical and statistical aspects of the origin of the large-scale structure in the Universe, in view of the two most widely known and accepted scenarios: the inflaton and the curvaton scenarios. Among the theoretical…
The Universe may pass through an effectively matter-dominated epoch between inflation and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis during which gravitationally bound structures can form on subhorizon scales. In particular, the inflaton field can collapse…
We propose a simple model in which the cosmological dark matter consists of particles whose mass increases with the scale factor of the universe. The particle mass is generated by the expectation value of a scalar field which does not have…