Related papers: Looking back in time beyond the big bang
Enforcing the spacetime of supermassive cosmic strings to satisfy the symmetry of a gravitational topological defect, that is a spacetime kink, it is shown that the energy of these strings becomes quantized so that only defects whose…
We perform a detailed study of stringy moduli-driven cosmologies between the end of inflation and the commencement of the Hot Big Bang, including both the background and cosmological perturbations: a period that can cover half the lifetime…
We investigate the cosmological behavior in a universe governed by time asymmetric extensions of general relativity, which is a novel modified gravity based on the addition of new, time-asymmetric, terms on the Hamiltonian framework, in a…
We consider brane cosmologies within the context of five-dimensional actions with O(a') higher curvature corrections. The actions are compatible with bulk string amplitude calculations from heterotic string theory. We find wrapped solutions…
Preliminary investigations of the topological phase of string theory along the lines of a (restricted) $\dot{w}_{\infty}$ non-linear sigma model are provided. Gauge fixing the w gravity gauge fields by preserving a geometric identity Lorenz…
The cosmological constant problem is turned around to argue for a new foundational physics postulate underlying a consistent quantum theory of gravity and matter, such as string theory. This postulate is a quantum equivalence principle…
We study Big Crunch/Big Bang cosmologies that correspond to exact world-sheet superconformal field theories of type II strings. The string theory spacetime contains a Big Crunch and a Big Bang cosmology, as well as additional ``whisker''…
We re-examine the graceful exit problem in the pre-big bang scenario of string cosmology, by considering the most general time-dependent classical correction to the Lagrangian with up to four derivatives. By including possible forms for…
We study the time evolution of a $3+1$ dimensional spacetime, where space is a large three-sphere, due to small perturbations of the background fields. We focus on two classes of deformations. One corresponds on the worldsheet to…
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…
In the light of the recent results concerning CMB observations and GW detection we address the question of whether it is possible, in a self-consistent inflationary framework, to simultaneously generate a spectrum of scalar metric…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
It is hoped that these lectures will give a point of entry into that vast web of related ideas that go under the name "string theory". I start with a more or less qualitative introduction to gravity as a field theory and sketch how one…
The holographic ratio in Pre-big bang string cosmology is obtained in the presence string sources. An iterative procedure is adopted to solve the equations of motion and derive the ratio in four dimensional world. First the zeroth order…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
From higher dimensional theories, e.g. string theory, one expects the presence of non-minimally coupled scalar fields. We review the notion of conformal frames in cosmology and emphasize their physical equivalence, which holds at least at a…
The main goal of string phenomenology is to find realistic models of particle physics and cosmology within string theory. Dark bubble cosmology is an alternative to string compactifications, where our universe lives on a bubble expanding in…
Quantization of the time symmetric system of interacting strings requires that gravity, just as electromagnetism in Wheeler-Feynman's time symmetric electro- dynamics, also be an "adjunct field" instead of an independent entity. The…
We present a critical review and summary of String Gas Cosmology. We include a pedagogical derivation of the effective action starting from string theory, emphasizing the necessary approximations that must be invoked. Working in the…
Cosmic (super)strings offer promising ways to test ideas about the early universe and physics at high energies. While in field theory constructions their tension is usually assumed to be constant (or at most slowly-varying), this is often…