Related papers: Observational tests of inflation
Alan Guth introduced cosmologists to inflation at the 1980 Texas Symposium. Since, inflation has had almost as much impact on cosmology as the big-bang model itself. However, unlike the big-bang model, it has little observational support.…
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…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
This is a review of models of inflation and of their predictions for the primordial non-Gaussianity in the density perturbations which are thought to be at the origin of structures in the Universe. Non-Gaussianity emerges as a key…
We calculate power spectra of cosmological perturbations at high accuracy for two classes of inflation models. We classify the models according to the behaviour of the Hubble distance during inflation. Our approximation works if the Hubble…
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…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
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…
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
Though predictions of the simplest inflationary cosmological models with cold dark matter, flat space and approximately flat initial spectrum of adiabatic perturbations are remarkably close to observational data, we have to go beyond them…
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 presence of multiple fields during inflation might seed a detectable amount of non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbations, which in turn becomes observable in present data sets like the cosmic microwave background (CMB) or the large…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
Inflationary cosmology proposes that the early Universe undergoes accelerated expansion, driven, in simple scenarios, by a single scalar field, or inflaton. The form of the inflaton potential determines the initial spectra of density…
The theory of eternal inflation in an inflaton potential with multiple vacua predicts that our universe is one of many bubble universes nucleating and growing inside an ever-expanding false vacuum. The collision of our bubble with another…
In a previous paper we proposed a new approach to the beginning of inflation -- a lingering universe. The universe begins in a lingering state with a nearly vanishing Hubble parameter. This calls into question the absolute age of the…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
Despite its central role in modern cosmology, doubts are often expressed as to whether cosmological inflation is really a falsifiable theory. We distinguish two facets of inflation, one as a theory of initial conditions for the hot big bang…