Related papers: Inflation without a beginning: a null boundary pro…

A family of de Sitter vacua introduced in hep-th/0203198 as plausible initial conditions for inflation, are discussed from the point of view of de Sitter holography. The vacua are argued to be physically acceptable and the inflationary…

One way to judge the impact of the inflation concept is to consider where cosmology might be today without it. The Einstein-de Sitter model would not have been so keenly defended, and there might have been more interest in negative space…

We argue that in the context of eternal inflation in the landscape, making predictions for cosmological -- and possibly particle physics -- observables requires a measure on the possible cosmological histories as opposed to one on the vacua…

The work is an attempt to model a scenario of inflation in the framework of Anti de Sit- ter/Conformal Field theory (AdS/CFT) duality, a potentially complete nonperturbative description of quantum gravity via string theory. We look at…

We argue that for $f(R)=R+\alpha R^n$ model of the early universe, the de Sitter point appears as partial attractor for phantom paths. The phantom trajectories then bend their way to the oscillatory period passing near the de Sitter saddle…

We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…

An alternative inflationary model is proposed predicated upon a consideration of the form of the uncertainty principle in a curved background spacetime. An argument is presented suggesting a possible curvature dependence in the correct…

In spirit of the recently proposed four-parameter generalized entropy of apparent horizon, we investigate inflationary cosmology where the matter field inside of the horizon is dominated by a scalar field with a power law potential (i.e.,…

I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…

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…

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…

We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…

We present a new approach to constructing inflationary models in closed universes. Conformal embedding of closed-universe models in a de Sitter background suggests a quantisation condition on the available conformal time. This condition…

Non-trivial inflaton self-interactions can yield calculable signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity that are measurable in cosmic surveys. Surprisingly, we find that the phase transition to slow-roll eternal inflation is often incalculable…

In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…

We construct analytic and numerical solutions of the Fokker-Planck equation that arises in the context of stochastic inflation. We use these solutions to derive necessary conditions for eternal inflation on the higher derivatives of the…

We show why the universe started in an unstable de Sitter state. The quantum origin of our universe implies one must take a `top down' approach to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology, in which the histories that contribute to the…

The inflationary scenario, which states that the early universe underwent a brief but dramatic period of accelerated spatial expansion, has become the current paradigm of early universe cosmology. Although inflationary cosmology has its…

When Inflation is embedded in a fundamental theory, such as string theory, it typically begins when the Universe is already substantially larger than the fundamental scale [such as the one defined by the string length scale]. This is…

We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…