Related papers: What can we learn by probing Trans-Planckian physi…
In this Thesis I discuss several recent results obtained using the CMB spectra measured by Planck and several other cosmological probes. Extensions of the $\Lambda$CDM model are studied, including the presence of an additional sterile…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
The ``trans-Planckian'' challenge in cosmology appears when we trace the present physical wavelengths of fluctuations backwards in time. They become smaller and smaller until crossing the Planck scale where conventional QFT is challenged,…
When a subdominant light scalar field ends slow roll during inflation, but well after the Hubble exit of the pivot scales, it may determine the cosmological perturbations. This thesis investigates how such a scalar field, the spectator, may…
We present a new model for the formation of spherically symmetric clusters in an expanding Universe. Both the Universe and the collapsing cluster are governed by the same pressure less fluid equations for which a uniform initial density…
A long-standing problem of theoretical physics is the exceptionally small value of the cosmological constant $\Lambda \sim 10^{-120}$ measured in natural Planckian units. Here we derive this tiny number from a toroidal string cosmology…
Over the past decades, advancements in observational cosmology have introduced us in an era of precision cosmology, dramatically enhancing our understanding of the Universe's history as well as bringing new tensions to light. Observations…
While the standard, six-parameter, spatially flat $\Lambda$CDM model has been highly successful, certain anomalies in the cosmic microwave background bring out a tension between this model and observations. The statistical significance of…
In this paper we consider the influence of transplanckian physics on the CMBR anisotropies produced by inflation. We consider a simple toy model that allows for analytic calculations and argue on general grounds, based on ambiguities in the…
Departures of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) frequency spectrum from a blackbody - commonly referred to as spectral distortions - encode information about the thermal history of the early Universe (redshift z < few x 10^6). While the…
The bulk of recent cosmological research has focused on the adiabatic cold dark matter model and its simple extensions. Here we present an accurate fitting formula that describes the matter transfer functions of all common variants,…
The standard, scale-invariant, inflationary perturbation spectrum will be modified if the effects of trans-Planckian physics are incorporated into the dynamics of the matter field in a phenomenological manner, say, by the modification of…
We investigate the insensitivity of the predictions of inflationary models with respect to modifications of Planck energy physics. The modification we consider consists in replacing the usual dispersion relation by nonlinear ones. This way…
Curvature perturbations with short wavelengths exit the Hubble horizon when the universe may contain a thermal plasma in addition to an inflaton field that drives its expansion. We solve the corresponding fluctuation-dissipation dynamics at…
This article presents the derivation of the stress-energy tensor of a free scalar field with a general non-linear dispersion relation in curved spacetime. This dispersion relation is used as a phenomelogical description of the short…
The apparent accelerating expansion of the Universe is forcing us to examine the foundational aspects of the standard model of cosmology -- in particular, the fact that dark energy is a direct consequence of the homogeneity assumption. We…
We provide a class of QFTs which exhibit dissipation above a threshold energy, thereby breaking Lorentz invariance. Unitarity is preserved by coupling the fields to additional degrees of freedom (heavy fields) which introduce the rest…
Due to the tremendous red-shift that occurs during the inflationary epoch in the early universe, it has been realized that trans-Planckian physics may manifest itself at energies much lower than the Planck energy. The presence of a…
We study the quantum version of a simplified model of optimization problems, where quantum fluctuations are introduced by a transverse field acting on the qubits. We find a complex low-energy spectrum of the quantum Hamiltonian,…
If spacetime undergoes quantum fluctuations, an electromagnetic wavefront will acquire uncertainties in direction as well as phase as it propagates through spacetime. These uncertainties can show up in interferometric observations of…