Related papers: A Brief Comment on "The Pyrotechnic Universe"
This is a short overview of the ekpyrotic/cyclic model of the universe, an alternative to the standard big bang inflationary paradigm.
This is an introduction to the ekpyrotic scenario, with an emphasis on the two contexts of brane cosmology and primordial universe scenarios. A self-contained introduction to brane cosmology and a qualitative overview and comparison of the…
New Ekpyrotic Cosmology is an alternative scenario of early universe cosmology in which the universe existed before the big bang. The simplest model relies on two scalar fields, whose entropy perturbation leads to a scale-invariant spectrum…
Inflationary theory is already 20 years old, and it is impossible to describe all of its versions and implications in a short talk. I will concentrate on several subjects which I believe to be most important. First of all, I will give a…
In this paper, we present a new scenario of the early Universe that contains a pre big bang Ekpyrotic phase. By combining this with a ghost condensate, the theory explicitly violates the null energy condition without developing any…
I will discuss the development of inflationary theory and its present status, as well as some recent attempts to suggest an alternative to inflation. In particular, I will argue that the ekpyrotic scenario in its original form does not…
New Ekpyrotic Cosmology is an alternative scenario of the early universe which relies on a phase of slow contraction before the big bang. We calculate the 3-point and 4-point correlation functions of primordial density perturbations and…
With the new cosmological data gathered over the last few years, the inflationary paradigm has seen its predictions largely unchallenged. A recent proposal, called the ekpyrotic scenario, was argued to be a viable competitor as it was…
The no-boundary proposal provides a compelling theory for the initial conditions of our universe. We study the implications of such initial conditions for ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies. These cosmologies allow for the existence of a new…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
A popular science article designed to introduce people familiar with basic cosmological nomenclature with models alternative to cosmological inflation. The paper briefly discusses the modern view of the Big Bang model, inflation (both its…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
The inflationary paradigm, although very successful phenomenologically, suffers from several conceptual problems which motivate the search for alternative scenarios of early universe cosmology. Here, two possible alternatives will be…
In this note, we prove analytic bounds on the equation of state of a cosmological fluid composed of an arbitrary number of canonical scalars evolving in a negative multi-exponential potential. Because of the negative energy, the universe is…
We calculate the Bayesian evidences for a class of Ekpyrotic universe models, and compare with a model of single field inflation with a Higgs-type potential. Combining parsimony and observational constraints, this gives us a systematic way…
The results from Planck2015, when combined with earlier observations from WMAP, ACT, SPT and other experiments, were the first observations to disfavor the "classic" inflationary paradigm. To satisfy the observational constraints,…
The chaotic inflationary model of the early universe, proposed by Linde is explored in the brane world considering matter described by a minimally coupled self interacting scalar field. We obtain cosmological solutions which admit evolution…
We present a holographic description of four-dimensional single-scalar inflationary universes in terms of a three-dimensional quantum field theory. The holographic description correctly reproduces standard inflationary predictions in their…
Ekpyrotic bouncing cosmologies have been proposed as alternatives to inflation. In these scenarios, the universe is smoothed and flattened during a period of slow contraction preceding the bounce while quantum fluctuations generate nearly…
Cosmological models involving a bounce from a contracting to an expanding universe can address the standard cosmological puzzles and generate "primordial" density perturbations without the need for inflation. Some such models, in particular…