Related papers: Strings, Textures, Inflation and Spectrum Bending
Cosmological inflation and topological defects have been considered for a long time, either in disagreement or in competition. On the one hand an inflationary era is required to solve the shortcomings of the hot big bang model, while on the…
Doppler peaks in the cosmic microwave background may allow us to distinguish among the two classes of theories-inflationary models and topological defect scenarios-which attempt to explain the origin of structure formation in the universe.…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…
It is tempting to inflate along one of the many flat directions that arise in supersymmetric theories. The required flatness of the potential to obtain sufficient inflation and to not overproduce density fluctuations occurs naturally.…
We investigate which of the exotic Doppler peak features found for textures and cosmic strings are generic novelties pertaining to defects. We find that the ``out of phase'' texture signature is an accident. Generic defects, when they…
Thermal inflation was proposed as a mechanism to dilute the density of cosmological moduli. Thermal inflation is driven by a complex scalar field possessing a large vacuum expectation value and a very flat potential, called a `flaton'. Such…
Recent developments in inflation model building, based on supersymmetry, have produced compelling models in which strings are produced at the end of inflation. In such models the cosmological perturbations are seeded both by the defects and…
At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…
Inflation arises in supersymmetric grand unified theories (susy GUTs) without fine tuning and cosmic strings usually form at the end of inflation. Hence both strings and inflation contribute to the density perturbations in the very early…
A general overview of the history and present status of inflationary cosmology is given. Recent developments discussed in this paper include the hybrid inflation scenario, the theory of reheating, and the theory of inflating tolopogical…
A wide class of inflationary models, known as Hybrid Inflation models, may produce topological defects during a phase transition at the end of the inflationary epoch. We point out that, if the energy scale of these defects is close to that…
In this talk we describe recent progress in construction of inflationary models in the context of string theory with flux compactification and moduli stabilization. We also discuss a possibility to test string theory by cosmological…
Brane inflation in superstring theory predicts that cosmic strings (but not domain walls or monopoles) are produced towards the end of the inflationary epoch. Here, we discuss the production, the spectrum and the evolution of such cosmic…
A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that…
We develop a numerical statistical method to study linear cosmological fluctuations in inflationary scenarios with multiple fields, and apply it to an ensemble of six-field inflection point models in string theory. The latter are concrete…
We discuss metric perturbations produced during a period of inflation in the early universe where two scalar fields evolve. The final scalar perturbation spectrum can be calculated in terms of the perturbed expansion along neighbouring…
Brane inflation and the production of topological defects at the end of the inflationary phase are discussed. After a description of the inflationary setup we discuss the properties of the cosmic strings produced at the end of inflation.…
We present a study of open inflation cosmological scenarios in which cosmic strings form betwen the two inflationary epochs. It is shown that in these models strings are stretched outside the horizon due to the inflationary expansion but…
These lectures present a brief review of inflationary cosmology, provide an overview of the theory of cosmological perturbations, and then focus on the conceptual problems of the current paradigm of early universe cosmology, thus motivating…