Related papers: Remarks on Inflation
We discuss the possibility that the inflationary paradigm, undoubtfully today's best framework to understand all the present cosmological data, may still have some viable challengers. The underlying idea for such discussions is that…
Previously defined covariant and gauge-invariant perturbation variables, representing, e.g., the fractional spatial energy density gradient on hypersurfaces of constant expansion, are used to simplify the linear perturbation analysis of a…
It is proposed that if quantum states of space-time are coherent on null surfaces, holographic Planck-scale fluctuations of inflationary horizons dominate the formation of primordial scalar curvature perturbations. It is shown that the…
We extend the `topological inflation' of Linde and Vilenkin to {\em unstable} monopoles. This allows the monopole to decay; not inflating eternally, as topological inflation demands. Such a situation happens naturally in some Grand Unified…
Extra-natural inflation is (de)constructed. Explicit models are compared with cosmological observations. The models successfully achieve trans-Planckian inflaton field excursions.
These lecture notes intend to form a short pedagogical introduction to inflationary cosmology, highlighting selected areas of recent progress such as reheating and the theory of cosmological perturbations. Problems of principle for…
In this brief review we will discuss how a well motivated particle theory beyond the eletroweak Standard Model provides ingredients and conditions for a successful inflation. We will mainly focus on a low energy supersymmetric Standard…
We investigate the quantum cosmological tunneling scenario for inflationary models. Within a path-integral approach, we derive the corresponding tunneling probability distribution. A sharp peak in this distribution can be interpreted as the…
A scenario with two subsequent periods of inflationary expansion in the very early universe is examined. The model is based on a potential motivated by symmetries being found in field theory at high energy. For various parameter sets of the…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
Inflation due to a non-minimally coupled scalar field with a large non-minimal coupling, as first proposed by Salopek, Bardeen and Bond (SBB), is in good agreement with the observed value of the spectral index and constraints on the…
Attention has been recently drawn towards models in which inflation and quintessence schemes are unified. In such `quintessential inflation' models, a unique scalar field is required to play both the role of the inflaton and of the…
We show that the scale of the inflationary potential may be the electroweak scale or even lower, while still generating an acceptable spectrum of primordial density perturbations. Thermal effects readily lead to the initial conditions…
We study the dynamics of two concrete inflationary models, namely Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Inflation as well as Loop Inflation. We constrain the parameters for which a viable inflationary Universe emerges using the latest PLANCK…
We propose a variant of hybrid inflation which is applicable in a wide class of supersymmetric grand unified models. The observed temperature perturbations of cosmic background radiation can be reproduced with natural values of the…
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 observational status of inflation after the Planck 2013 and 2015 results and the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck joint analysis is discussed. These pedagogical lecture notes are intended to serve as a technical guide filling the gap…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
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…
It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the…