Related papers: Inflation and String Cosmology
After 25 years of its existence, inflationary theory gradually becomes the standard cosmological paradigm. However, we still do not know which of the many versions of inflationary cosmology will be favored by the future observational data.…
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…
These lectures are intended to give a pedagogical introduction to the main current picture of the very early universe. After elementary reviews of general relativity and of the standard Big Bang model, the following subjects are discussed:…
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 provides a robust description of the peculiar initial conditions which are required for the success of the Hot Big Bang model of cosmology, as well as of the recent precision measurements of temperature…
We review cosmological inflation and its realization in quantum field theory and in string theory. This material is a portion of a book, also entitled "Inflation and String Theory", to be published by Cambridge University Press.
This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or…
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…
This article contains a concise review of the theory of inflation. We discuss its main theoretical aspects as well as its observational predictions. We also explain how the most recent astrophysical observations constrain the inflationary…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
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…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
We give a brief review of the basic principles of inflationary theory and discuss the present status of the simplest inflationary models that can describe Planck/BICEP/Keck observational data by choice of a single model parameter. In…
A general overview of the history and present status of inflationary cosmology is given. Recent developments discussed in this paper include the hybrid inflation scenario, the theory of reheating, and the theory of inflating tolopogical…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…
The theory of cosmological perturbations is the main tool which connects theories of the early universe (based on new fundamental physics such as string theory) with cosmological observations. In these lectures, I will provide an…
Does inflation provide a compelling explanation for why the universe is so large, so flat, and so old, and a predictive theory of density perturbations? In this brief contribution (based on the role of the author as moderator of the…
These lectures present a brief review of inflationary cosmology, provide an overview of the theory of cosmological perturbations, and then focus on the conceptual problems of the current paradigm of early universe cosmology, thus motivating…