Related papers: Inflation and the cosmic microwave background
The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution…
A period of inflation in the early universe produces a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of gravitational waves over a huge range in wavelength. If the amplitude of this gravitational wave background is large enough to be detectable with…
We review the currrent cosmic parameter determinations of relevance to inflation using the WMAP-1year, Boomerang, CBI, Acbar and other CMB data. The basic steps in the pipelines which determine the bandpowers from the raw data from which…
We briefly discuss constraints on supersymmetric hybrid inflation models and examine the consistency of brane inflation models. We then address the implications for inflationary scenarios resulting from the strong constraints on the cosmic…
The characteristics of the cosmic microwave background provide circumstantial evidence that the hot radiation-dominated epoch in the early universe was preceded by a period of inflationary expansion. Here, we show how a measurement of the…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
We argue that the lack of power exhibited by cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies at large angular scales might be linked to the onset of inflation. We highlight observational features and theoretical hints that support this view,…
I examine the status of inflationary cosmology in light of the first-year data from the WMAP satellite, focusing on the simplest models of inflation: those driven by a single scalar field. The WMAP observation of the Cosmic Microwave…
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…
Forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments (CMB) will provide precise new tests of structure-formation theories. The geometry of the Universe may be determined robustly, and the classical cosmological parameters, such as the…
Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General…
Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) are discussed, with particular emphasis on current ground-based experiments and on future satellite, balloon and interferometer experiments. Observational techniques and the effects of…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
In this review I consider several different issues related to inflation. I will begin with the wave function of the Universe. This issue is pretty old, but recently there were some new insights based on the theory of the self-reproducing…
A rigorous constraint analysis on cosmic inflation entails several probes which collectively survey an extensive range of energy scales. We complement the cosmic microwave background data with an updated compilation of the cosmic abundance…
Microwave background polarization, though presently undetected, is a fundamental prediction of any viable cosmological model. These lectures review the theoretical description of polarization, its physical interpretation, and potentially…
In this paper, we investigate some consequences of multiple-field inflation for the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). We derive expressions for the amplitudes, the spectral indices and the derivatives of the indices of the CMB…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
The variation of the perturbative 3-curvature parameter, \zeta, is investigated in the period of reheating after inflation. The two-field model used has the inflaton, with an extra scalar field coupled to it, and non-linear effects of both…