Related papers: A Brief Comment on "The Pyrotechnic Universe"
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
We present a novel theory of the very early universe which addresses the traditional horizon and flatness problems of big bang cosmology and predicts a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations. Unlike inflation, this scenario requires no…
I survey physics theories involving parallel universes, which form a natural four-level hierarchy of multiverses allowing progressively greater diversity. Level I: A generic prediction of inflation is an infinite ergodic universe, which…
We consider the description of cosmological dynamics from the onset of inflation by a perfect fluid whose parameters must be consistent with the strength of the enhanced quantum loop effects that can arise during inflation. The source of…
Recently Hollands and Wald argued that inflation does not solve any of the major cosmological problems. We explain why we disagree with their arguments. They also proposed a new speculative mechanism of generation of density perturbations.…
We show how to derive several families of accelerating universe solutions to an Einstein-Aether gravity theory. These solutions provide possible descriptions of inflationary behaviour in the early universe and late-time cosmological…
Current observational data is consistent with the universe being slightly closed. We investigate families of singular and non-singular closed instantons that could describe the beginning of a closed inflationary universe. We calculate the…
This paper contains a critique of the standard inflationary account of the origin of cosmological structures from quantum fluctuations in the early universe. This critique can be thought to be purely philosophical in nature, but I prefer to…
We provide a realisation of a singularity-free inflationary universe in the form of a simple cosmological model dominated at early times by a single minimally coupled scalar field with a physically based potential. The universe starts…
Current cosmological models require the universe to be in a very smooth initial state before the onset of inflation, a situation to which Penrose ascribes a vanishingly small probability, leading to his proposal of a Conformal Cyclic…
Loop quantum cosmology applies techniques derived for a background independent quantization of general relativity to cosmological situations and draws conclusions for the very early universe. Direct implications for the singularity problem…
We consider a simple model of cosmological collapse driven by canonical fields with exponential potentials. We generalise the two-field ekpyrotic collapse to consider non-orthogonal or tilted potentials and give the general condition for…
Alternative scenarios to the Big Bang singularity have been subject of intense research for several decades by now. Most popular in this sense have been frameworks were such singularity is replaced by a bounce around some minimal…
An introduction to modern theories for the origin of structure in the Universe is given. After a brief review of the growth of cosmological perturbations in an expanding Universe and a summary of some important observational results, the…
Some recent studies based on numerical relativity simulations claim that slow contraction/ekpyrosis is strongly preferred over inflation as the smoothing mechanism that brought the universe into the homogeneous, isotropic and flat state we…
The idea of a Mutiverse is controversial, although it is a natural possible solution to particle physics and cosmological fine-tuning problems (FTPs). Here I explore the analogy between the Multiverse proposal and the proposal that there…
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
In this article first we present a brief review of some alternative theories of cosmology. Then by referring to some of the main works done in these theories we show that how they can describe the phenomena which are explained nowadays in…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are…
We introduce "anamorphic" cosmology, an approach for explaining the smoothness and flatness of the universe on large scales and the generation of a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations. The defining feature is…