Related papers: Causality and Cosmic Inflation
We point out that the horizon problem encountered in standard text-books or review papers on cosmology is, in general, derived for world models based on Robertson-Walker line element where homogeneity and isotropy of the universe -- \`a la…
In this paper, we consider a nonminimal coupling model between gravity and nonlinear electrodynamics with cosmological constant. This cosmological model is designed to account for both the inflationary epoch of the early universe and the…
Inflation, a period of exponential expansion in the early Universe, is considered an important part of the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, and plays a crucial role in explaining a wide range of current observations. The standard…
The inflationary expansion of our early-time universe is considered in terms of the van der Waals equation, as equation of state for the cosmic fluid, where a bulk viscosity contribution is assumed to be present. The corresponding…
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…
Many authors claimed that a large initial inhomogeneity prevents the onset of inflation and therefore inflation takes place only if the scalar field is homogeneous or appropriately chosen over the horizon scale. We show that those arguments…
We present cosmological constraints from Planck 2015 data for a universe that is kinetically dominated at very early times. We perform a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis to estimate parameters and use nested sampling to determine the…
Inflation is now an accepted paradigm in standard cosmology, with its predictions consistent with observations of the cosmic microwave background. It lacks, however, a firm physical theory, with many possible theoretical origins beyond the…
Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General…
We study the inflationary era of the Universe in a modified cosmological scenario based on the gravity-thermodynamics conjecture with Barrow entropy instead of the usual Bekenstein-Hawking one. The former arises from the effort to account…
We show that the inclusion of backreaction of massive long wavelengths imposes dynamical constraints on the allowed phase space of initial conditions for inflation, which results in a superselection rule for the initial conditions. Only…
We consider cosmological inflation generated by a scalar field slowly rolling off from a de Sitter maximum of its potential. The models belong to the class of hilltop models and represent the most general model of this kind in which the…
The very early universe provides the best arena we currently have to test quantum gravity theories. The success of the inflationary paradigm in accounting for the observed inhomogeneities in the cosmic microwave background already…
It is widely accepted that the primordial universe experienced a brief period of accelerated expansion called inflation. This scenario provides a plausible solution to the horizon and flatness problems. However, the particle physics…
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…
We investigate the dynamics of homogeneous phase space for single-field models of inflation. Inflationary trajectories are formally attractors in phase space, but since in practice not all initial conditions lead to them, some degree of…
The Higgs field is an attractive candidate for the inflaton because it is an observationally confirmed fundamental scalar field. Importantly, it can be modeled by the most general renormalizable scalar potential. However, if the classical…
We propose a model of inflation driven by the relaxation of an initially Planckian cosmological constant due to diffusion. The model can generate a (approximately) scale invariant spectrum of (adiabatic) primordial perturbations with the…
We study chaotic inflation driven by a real, massive, homogeneous minimally coupled scalar field in a flat Robertson-Walker spacetime. The semiclassical limit for gravity is considered, whereas the scalar field is treated quantum…
We present a class of exact solutions to the constraint equations of General Relativity coupled to a Klein - Gordon field, these solutions being isotropic but not homogeneous. We analyze the subsequent evolution of the consistent Cauchy…