Related papers: Causality and Cosmic Inflation
Attention has been recently drawn towards models in which inflation and quintessence schemes are unified. In such `quintessential inflation' models, a unique scalar field is required to play both the role of the inflaton and of the…
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 study primordial perturbations from hyperinflation, proposed recently and based on a hyperbolic field-space. In the previous work, it was shown that the field-space angular momentum supported by the negative curvature modifies the…
We give a detailed presentation of a recently proposed mechanism of generating the energy scale of inflation by loop effects in quantum cosmology. We discuss the quantum origin of the early inflationary Universe from the no-boundary and…
The inflationary and pre-inflationary evolution of scalar modes of cosmological perturbations in a closed universe is analyzed for a loop quantum cosmology model with an inflationary regime consistent with the constraints on inflation…
We consider cosmological scenarios in which density perturbations are generated by the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field at early times; the late time dynamics involves a modulus which first dominates the energy density of the…
We review the main aspects of the warm inflation scenario, focusing on the inflationary dynamics and the predictions related to the primordial spectrum of perturbations, to be compared with the recent cosmological observations. We study in…
We show that in the case of positively-curved Friedmann-Lema\^{\i}tre universes $(k=+1)$, an inflationary period in the early universe will for most initial conditions not solve the horizon problem, no matter how long inflation lasts. It…
We study the evolution of regions of space with various initial field values for a simple theory that can support hybrid inflation. Only very narrow domains within the range of initial field values below the Planck scale lead to the onset…
We find the best-fit cosmological parameters for a scenario of inflation with only the sufficient amount of accelerated expansion for the $\lambda\phi^4$ potential. While for the simplest scenario of chaotic inflation all observable…
In some versions of the theory of inflation, it is assumed that before inflation began the universe was in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) stage, with the energy density dominated by massless particles. The origin of the nearly…
Cosmic inflation claims to make the initial conditions of the standard big bang "generic". But Boltzmann taught us that the thermodynamic arrow of time arises from very non-generic ("low entropy") initial conditions. I discuss how to…
During inflation, there is a preferred reference frame in which the expansion of the background spacetime is spatially isotropic. In contrast to Minkowski spacetime, observables can depend on the velocity of the system with respect to this…
We show that in generic supergravity theories the mass of the moduli during inflation is larger (or at least of the same order of magnitude) than the Hubble constant. This fact does not depends on the details of the inflation and on the…
Eternal inflation requires upward fluctuations of the energy in a Hubble volume, which appear to violate the energy conditions. In particular, a scalar field in an inflating spacetime should obey the averaged null energy condition, which…
The evolution of a scalar field is explored taking into account the presence of a background fluid in a positively curved Universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology. Though the mechanism that provides the initial conditions for…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
In this paper we will discuss a model which describes the cause of inflation by a topological transition. The guiding principle is the choice of an exotic smoothness structure for the space-time. Here we consider a space-time with topology…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
We show that the scale of the inflationary potential may be the electroweak scale or even lower, while still generating an acceptable spectrum of primordial density perturbations. Thermal effects readily lead to the initial conditions…