Related papers: Topological Inflation, without the Topology
We consider the eternal inflation scenario of the slow-roll/chaotic type with the additional element of an objective collapse of the wave function. The incorporation of this new agent to the traditional inflationary setting might represent…
We consider a universe with a bulk viscous cosmic fluid, in a flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker geometry. We derive the conditions for the existence of inflation, and those which at the same time prevent the occurrence of…
We study a class of non-local, action-based, and purely gravitational models. These models seek to describe a cosmology in which inflation is driven by a large, bare cosmological constant that is screened by the self-gravitation between the…
We study analytically the process of a topological texture collapse in the approximation of a scaling ansatz in the nonlinear sigma-model. In this approximation we show that in flat space-time topological texture eventually collapses while…
Currently favoured extensions of the Standard Model typically contain `flaton fields' defined as fields with large vacuum expectation values (vevs) and almost flat potentials. If a flaton field is trapped at the origin in the early…
A global monopole (or other topological defect) formed during a recent phase transition with core size comparable to the present Hubble scale, could induce the observed accelerating expansion of the universe. In such a model, topological…
We perform a semi-classical analysis of the Emergent Universe scenario for inflation. Fixing the background, and taking the inflaton to be homogenous, we cast the inflaton's evolution as a one-dimensional quantum mechanics problem. We find…
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''…
We discuss a novel scenario for early cosmology, when the inflationary quasi-de Sitter phase dynamically originates from the initial quantum state represented by the microcanonical density matrix. This genuine quantum effect occurs as a…
Recent high precision data by WMAP and SDSS have provided strong evidence to suggest that the universe is nearly flat. They are also making it possible to probe the topology of the universe. Motivated by these results, we have recently…
Supersymmetry breaking close to the scale of grand unification can explain cosmic inflation. As we demonstrate in this paper, this can be achieved in strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories, such that the energy scales of inflation…
We describe a new mechanism that gives rise to dissipation during cosmic inflation. In the simplest implementation, the mechanism requires the presence of a massive scalar field with a softly-broken global $U(1)$ symmetry, along with the…
We discuss the large-scale structure of the universe in inflationary cosmology and the implications that it may have for the long-term future of civilizations. Although each civilization is doomed to perish, it may be possible to transmit…
We present two- and three-dimensional simulations of the growth of quantum fluctuations of the scalar fields in supersymmetric hybrid inflation models. For a natural range of couplings, sub-horizon quantum fluctuations undergo rapid growth…
We show that a supersymmetric renormalizable theory based on gauge group SO(10) and Higgs system {\bf {10 $\oplus$ 210 $\oplus$ 126 $\oplus$ $\overline{\bf 126}$}} with no scale supergravity can lead to a Starobinsky kind of potential for…
Inflation may occur while rolling into the metastable supersymmetry-breaking vacuum of massive supersymmetric QCD. We explore the range of parameters in which slow-roll inflation and long-lived metastable supersymmetry breaking may be…
In a broad class of scenarios, inflation is followed by an extended era of matter-dominated expansion during which the inflaton condensate is nonrelativistic on subhorizon scales. During this phase density perturbations grow to the point of…
We study the impact of the expansion of the universe on a broad class of objects, including black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and others. Using metrics that incorporate primordial inhomogeneities, the effects of a hypothetical…
A model of a universe without big bang singularity is presented, which displaysanearly inflationary period ending just before a phase transition to a deflationary epoch. The model produces enough heavy particles so as to reheat the universe…
In a previous paper, two of the authors presented a "regulated" picture of eternal inflation. This picture both suggested and drew support from a conjectured discontinuity in the amplitude for tunneling from positive to negative vacuum…