Related papers: Loop Quantum Cosmology, Boundary Proposals, and In…
Cosmology is in an era of rapid discovery especially in areas related to dark energy, dark matter and inflation. Quantum cosmology treats the cosmology quantum mechanically and is important when quantum effects need to be accounted for,…
Positively-curved, oscillatory universes are studied within the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology subject to a consistent semi-classical treatment. The semi-classical effects are reformulated in terms of an effective phantom fluid with a…
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 the context of Quantum Cosmology and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation we investigate the possible effects of a non semiclassical wave-function of the universe on the evolution of the inflationary perturbations. These are associated with the…
Aspects of the full theory of loop quantum gravity can be studied in a simpler context by reducing to symmetric models like cosmological ones. This leads to several applications where loop effects play a significant role when one is…
We investigate how various inflationary and bouncing cosmologies can be realized by imperfect fluids with a generalized equation of state, in the context of both classical and loop quantum cosmology. With regards to the inflationary…
The slow-roll approximation is an analytical approach to study dynamical properties of the inflationary universe. In this article, systematic construction of the slow-roll expansion for effective loop quantum cosmology is presented. The…
The increasing entropy, large-scale isotropy and approximate flatness of the universe are considered in the context of signature change, which is a classical model of quantum tunnelling in quantum cosmology. The signature change hypothesis…
One possible description of the very early stages of the evolution of the universe is provided by Chaotic Inflationary Cosmology. For that model the role of the inflaton field is played by quantum gravitational effects. We study if such a…
Using the dS/QFT correspondence in the context of inflation allows for the study of interesting, otherwise inaccessible physics. In particular, by studying inflation via its dual field theory at the boundary of the de Sitter space, it may…
Loop quantum cosmology (LQC) provides promising resolutions to the trans-Planckian issue and initial singularity arising in the inflationary models of general relativity. In general, due to different quantization approaches, LQC involves…
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…
Loop quantum cosmology is an application of recent developments for a non-perturbative and background independent quantization of gravity to a cosmological setting. Characteristic properties of the quantization such as discreteness of…
A self-consistent pre-inflationary extension of the inflationary scenario with the Starobinsky potential, favored by Planck data, is studied using techniques from loop quantum cosmology (LQC). The results are compared with the quadratic…
This paper discusses the problem of inflation in the context of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Cosmology. We show how, after a simple change of variables, to quantize the problem in a way which parallels the classical discussion. The result is…
The quantum cosmology of the flat Friedmann-Lema{\^i}tre-Robertson-Walker Universe, filled with a scalar field, is considered in the de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) interpretation framework. A stiff-matter quantum bounce solution is obtained. The…
We consider the description of cosmological dynamics from the onset of inflation by a perfect fluid whose parameters must be consistent with the strength of the enhanced quantum loop effects that can arise during inflation. The source of…
The era of precision cosmology has allowed us to accurately determine many important cosmological parameters, in particular via the CMB. Confronting Loop Quantum Cosmology with these observations provides us with a powerful test of the…
The very basics of cosmological inflation are discussed. We derive the equations of motion for the inflaton field, introduce the slow-roll parameters, and present the computation of the inflationary perturbations and their connection to the…
We study a theory which generalizes the nonminimal coupling of matter to gravity by including derivative couplings. This leads to several interesting new dynamical phenomena in cosmology. In particular, the range of parameters in which…