Related papers: Relic gravitons from non-singular string cosmologi…
Upcoming searches for the stochastic background of inflationary gravitational waves (GWs) offer the exciting possibility to probe the evolution of our Universe prior to Big Bang nucleosynthesis. In this spirit, we explore the sensitivity of…
The t<0 branch of pre-big bang cosmological scenarios is subject to a gravitational wave instability. The unstable behaviour of tensor perturbations is derived in a very simple way in Hwang's covariant and gauge-invariant formalism…
In this paper we examine the classical evolution of a cosmological model derived from the low-energy tree-level limit of a generic string theory. The action contains the metric, dilaton, central charge and an antisymmetric tensor field. We…
We propose that at the beginning of the universe gravity existed in a limbo either because it was switched off or because it was only conformally coupled to all particles. This picture can be reverse-engineered from the requirement that the…
Cuscuton Gravity is characterized as a scalar field that can be added to general relativity without introducing any new dynamical degrees of freedom on a cosmological background. Yet, it modifies gravity such that spacetime singularities…
The tensor modes reentering the Hubble radius when the plasma is dominated by a stiff fluid lead to a spectral energy density whose blue slope depends on the total post-inflationary sound speed. This result gets however corrected by a…
Theoretical arguments and cosmological observations suggest that Einstein's theory of general relativity needs to be modified at high energies. One of the best motivated higher-curvature extensions of general relativity is…
We compute the amount of inflation required to solve the horizon problem of cosmology in the pre-big-bang scenario. First we give a quick overview of string cosmology as developed by Veneziano and collaborators. Then we show that the amount…
The cosmological evolution of free massless vector or tensor (but not gauge) fields minimally coupled to gravity is analyzed. It is shown that there are some unstable solutions for these fields in De Sitter background. The back reaction of…
The spectra of the relic gravitons are customarily normalized in the low-frequency domain where the signal of the concordance paradigm is expected to peak and this is why their contribution to the temperature and polarization anisotropies…
The intersection of string theory with cosmology is unavoidable in the early universe, and its exploration may shine light on both fields. In this thesis, three papers at this intersection are presented and reviewed, with the aim of…
A stochastic background of relic gravitational waves is achieved by the so called adiabatically-amplified zero-point fluctuations process derived from early inflation. In principle, it provides a distinctive spectrum of relic gravitational…
Gravitational waves from cosmic strings are generated in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, potentially providing a unprecedented probe of the early universe. We discuss the key dynamical processes underlying calculations…
This paper examines two cosmological models of quantum gravity (from string theory and loop quantum gravity) to investigate the foundational and conceptual issues arising from quantum treatments of the big bang. While the classical…
We study the dynamics of the homogeneous and isotropic cosmological background in the recently proposed ``quantum phenomenological gravitational dynamics'', characterised by logarithmic corrections to the Bekenstein entropy. We show that…
We discuss the evolution of linear perturbations about a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background metric, using only the local conservation of energy-momentum. We show that on sufficiently large scales the curvature perturbation on spatial…
We discuss and summarise the predictions of a model for the non-equilibrium evolution of a network of cosmic strings initially containing {\em only loops} and {\em no infinite strings}. The results are of interest given recent work…
For the bosonic gravi-dilaton system, we provide systematical approaches to construct non-perturbative string cosmological solutions without curvature singularities, which can match the perturbative solution to any order in…
In conformally flat background geometries the long wavelength gravitons can be described in the fluid approximation and they induce scalar fluctuations both during inflation and in the subsequent radiation-dominated epoch. While this effect…
We show that the f(T) gravitational paradigm, in which gravity is described by an arbitrary function of the torsion scalar, can provide a mechanism for realizing bouncing cosmologies, thereby avoiding the Big Bang singularity. After…