Related papers: Non-Vacuum Initial States for Cosmological Perturb…
In the framework of Inflationary theory, the assumption that the quantum state of the perturbations is a non-vacuum state leads to a difficulty: non-vacuum initial states imply, in general, a large energy density of inflaton field quanta,…
We show that inflationary cosmology may be used to test the statistical predictions of quantum theory at very short distances and at very early times. Hidden-variables theories, such as the pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm, allow…
Cosmological inflation generates a spectrum of density perturbations that can seed the cosmic structures we observe today. These perturbations are usually computed as the result of the gravitationally-induced spontaneous creation of…
In the presence of a short-distance cutoff, the choice of a vacuum state in an inflating, non-de Sitter universe is unavoidably ambiguous. The ambiguity is related to the time at which initial conditions for the mode functions are specified…
We theoretically and observationally investigate different choices of initial conditions for the primordial mode function that are imposed during an epoch preceding inflation. By deriving predictions for the observables resulting from…
Cosmological inflation remains to be a unique mechanism of generation of plausible initial conditions in the early universe. In particular, it generates the primordial quasiclassical perturbations with power spectrum determined by the…
We study incomplete relaxation to quantum equilibrium at long wavelengths, during a pre-inflationary phase, as a possible explanation for the reported large-scale anomalies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Our scenario makes use of…
In this paper we consider realistic model of inflation embedded in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Phase of inflation is preceded here by the phase of a quantum bounce. We show how parameters of inflation depend on the initial…
We compute the primordial trispectrum for curvature perturbations produced during cosmic inflation in models with standard kinetic terms, when the initial quantum state is not necessarily the vacuum state. The presence of initial…
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…
We construct a simple non singular cosmological model in which the currently observed expansion phase was preceded by a contraction. This is achieved, in the framework of pure general relativity, by means of a radiation fluid and a free…
At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
We investigate for possible constraints on inflationary initial state from Large Scale Structure (LSS) observations. Using a model-independent framework, we build the template for the generic initial state and construct the matter power…
A brief review of the modern state of quantum cosmology is presented as a theory of quantum initial conditions for inflationary scenario. The no-boundary and tunneling states of the Universe are discussed as a possible source of probability…
We explore the possibility of a single field quasi-de Sitter inflationary model with general initial state for primordial fluctuations. In this paper, first we compute the power spectrum and the bispectrum of scalar perturbations with…
By quantizing the background as well as the perturbations in a simple one fluid cosmological model, we show that there exists an ambiguity in the choice of relevant variables, potentially leading to incompatible observational physical…
Quantum effects play an essential role in modern cosmology. Perhaps the most striking example comes from large-scale structures, generally assumed to originate from vacuum quantum fluctuations and stretched by an expansion phase. Inflation…
In order to calculate the power spectrum generated during a stage of inflation, we have to specify the quantum state of the inflaton perturbations, which is conventionally assumed to be the Bunch-Davies vacuum. We argue that this choice is…
Inflationary cosmology successfully accounts for the observed properties of primordial fluctuations using quantum field theory in an expanding background. However, the quantum nature of these fluctuations has not been experimentally…