Related papers: Coherent Phase Argument for Inflation
Assuming a closed universe with slight positive curvature, cosmic expansion is modeled as a heat engine where the '"system'" is defined collectively as those regions of space within the observable universe which will later evolve into voids…
We explore the possibility of describing our universe with a singularity--free, closed, spatially homogeneous and isotropic cosmological model, using only general relativity and a suitable equation of state which produces an inflationary…
We discuss the possibility that the inflationary paradigm, undoubtfully today's best framework to understand all the present cosmological data, may still have some viable challengers. The underlying idea for such discussions is that…
Cosmologists have embraced a particular ad hoc formula for the primordial power spectrum from inflation for universes with $\Omega_0 < 1$. However, the so-called ``Open Inflation'' models, which are attracting renewed interest in the…
We derive constraints on a simple quintessential inflation model, based on a spontaneously broken Phi^4 theory, imposed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe three-year data (WMAP3) and by galaxy clustering results from the Sloan…
Most high-energy constructions that realise a phase of cosmic inflation contain many degrees of freedom. Yet, cosmological observations are all consistent with single-field embeddings. We show how volume selection effects explain this…
In inflationary cosmology, the particles constituting the Universe are created after inflation in the process of reheating due to the interaction with the oscillating inflaton field. We briefly review the basics of the slow reheating, and…
The inflationary paradigm is an important cornerstone of the concordance cosmological model. However, standard inflation cannot fully address the transition from an early homogeneous and isotropic stage, to another one lacking such…
Power spectra always play an important role in the theory of inflation. In particular, the ability to reproduce the galaxy matter power spectrum and the CMB temperature angular power spectrum coefficients to high accuracy is often…
It is possible that the expansion of the universe began with an inflationary phase, in which the inflaton driving the process also was a Higgs field capable of stabilizing magnetic monopoles in a grand-unified gauge theory. If so, then the…
Yes, if the universe has compact topology. Inflation is currently the most elegant explanation of why the universe is old, large, nearly flat, homogeneous on large scales and structured on small scales. One of the weaknesses of the…
Inflationary models, especially those with plateau-type potentials, are consistent with the cosmological data, but inflation itself does not resolve the initial singularity. This singularity is resolved, for example, by the idea of the…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
A new idea of deriving a cosmological term from an underlying theory has been proposed in order to explain the expansion history of the universe. We obtain the scale factor with this derived cosmological term and demonstrate that it…
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a ``steady-state''…
Since this is a meeting on inflation the title of this talk should probably have been ``The cosmos as a lab for inflation''. I will illustrate how, by combining WMAP observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with smaller scales…
We discuss two important modifications of inflationary paradigm. Until very recently we believed that inflation automatically leads to flatness of the universe, Omega = 1. We also thought that post-inflationary phase transitions in GUTs may…
It has recently been realized that many theories of physics beyond the Standard Model give rise to cosmological histories exhibiting extended epochs of cosmological stasis. During such epochs, the abundances of different energy components…
We re-analyze the question of the use of cosmological observations to infer the present state and future evolution of our patch of the universe. In particular, we discuss under which conditions one might be able to infer that our patch will…
We present a new version of holographic cosmology, which is compatible with present observations. A primordial $p=\rho$ phase of the universe is followed by a brief matter dominated era and a brief period of inflation, whose termination…