Related papers: $\Omega_0 <1$ From Inflation
Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes…
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…
In the model of Chain Inflation, a sequential chain of coupled scalar fields drives inflation. We consider a multidimensional potential with a large number of bowls, or local minima, separated by energy barriers: inflation takes place as…
We define a new inflationary scenario in which inflation starts naturally after the Big Bang when the energy density drops below some critical value. As a model, we use recently proposed symmetron field whose effective potential depends on…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
In this review I briefly describe the evolution of the inflationary theory from the scenario based on the idea of supercooling and expansion in the false vacuum toward the theory of eternally expanding self-reproducing inflationary…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
We examine the effect of spatial curvature in the pre-big-bang inflationary model suggested by string theory. We study $O(\alpha ')$ corrections and we show that, independently of the initial curvature, they lead to a phase of exponential…
Among the three cosmological enigma solved by the theory of inflation, {\it viz.} (a) large scale flatness, (b) absence of monopoles and strings, and (c) structure formation, the first two are addressed from the viewpoint of the observed…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
In this article we provide a new closed relationship between cosmic abundance of primordial gravitational waves and primordial blackholes originated from initial inflationary perturbations for inflection-point models of inflation where…
We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…
The curvaton scenario for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represents an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario of inflation in which the observed density perturbations are due to…
How much does the curvature perturbation change after it leaves the horizon, and when should one evaluate the power spectrum? To answer these questions we study single field inflation models numerically, and compare the evolution of…
Warm inflation is an interesting possibility of describing the early universe, whose basic feature is the absence, at least in principle, of a preheating or reheating phase. Here we analyze the dynamics of warm inflation generalizing the…
We propose a self-consistent scenario of new inflation in supergravity. Chaotic inflation first takes place around the Planck scale, which solves the longevity problem, namely, why the universe can live much beyond the Planck time, and also…
A generic prediction of inflation is that the thermalized region we inhabit is spatially infinite. Thus, it contains an infinite number of regions of the same size as our observable universe, which we shall denote as $\O$-regions. We argue…
In order to go beyond the mean-field approximation, commonly used in the inflationary computations, an identification of the quantum constituents of the inflationary background is made. In particular, the homogeneous scalar field…
If our universe underwent inflation, its entropy during the inflationary phase was substantially lower than it is today. Because a low-entropy state is less likely to be chosen randomly than a high-entropy one, inflation is unlikely to…