Related papers: Predictions from Quantum Cosmology
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
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…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Predictions from early universe cosmology typically concern primordial perturbations generated during epochs where effects arising from the quantum nature of gravity may be important; quantum vacuum fluctuations being stretched to…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
Observations of the cosmic microwave sky are revealing the primordial non-uniformities from which all structure in the Universe grew. The only known physical mechanism for generating the inhomogeneities we see involves the amplification of…
A basic modern picture of the universe is given here. The lectures start from the historical ideas of a static universe. Then I move on to Newtonian cosmology and derive the main cosmological equations in the framework of Newtonian…
In this lecture I give a pedagogical introduction to inflationary cosmology with a special focus on the quantum generation of cosmological perturbations.
We review a cosmology in which particles are fluctuationally created from a background Zero Point Field. This cosmology is consistent with recent observations of an ever expanding and accelerating universe, as also the recently confirmed…
The particle production process is reviewed, through which cosmic inflation can produce a scale invariant superhorizon spectrum of perturbations of suitable fields starting from their quantum fluctuations. Afterwards, in the context of the…
The gravitational collapse and the birth of a new universe are considered in terms of quantum mechanics. Transitions from annihilation of matter to deflation in the collapse and from inflation to creation of matter in the birth of a…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
A quantum theory of the universe consists of a theory of its quantum dynamics and a theory of its quantum state The theory predicts quantum multiverses in the form of decoherent sets of alternative histories describing the evolution of the…
Quantum geometry predicts that a universe evolves through an inflationary phase at small volume before exiting gracefully into a standard Friedmann phase. This does not require the introduction of additional matter fields with ad hoc…
The inflationary scenario is not the only paradigm of early universe cosmology which is consistent with current observations. General criteria will be presented which any successful early universe model must satisfy. Various ways, including…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
We present a framework in which well-defined predictions are obtained in an eternally inflating multiverse, based on the principles of quantum mechanics. We show that the entire multiverse is described purely from the viewpoint of a single…
In this paper, we investigate the evolution of the early universe within an emergent fractional cosmological framework. The underlying formulation is conceptually rooted in generalized measure constructions, closely related to fractal…
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…