Related papers: Inflation and String Cosmology
Following the 2015 Planck release, we briefly comment on the status and some ongoing opportunities in the interface between inflationary cosmology, string theory, and CMB data. The constraints in the $r$-$n_s$ plane introduce a new…
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
Despite its central role in modern cosmology, doubts are often expressed as to whether cosmological inflation is really a falsifiable theory. We distinguish two facets of inflation, one as a theory of initial conditions for the hot big bang…
I will discuss the development of inflationary theory and its present status, including recent progress in describing de Sitter space and inflationary universe in string theory.
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. I describe the quantum origin of density perturbations, giving a heuristic derivation of…
The inflationary scenario is not the only paradigm of early universe cosmology which is consistent with current observations. General criteria will be presented which any successful early universe model must satisfy. Various ways, including…
We describe several different regimes which are possible in inflationary cosmology. The simplest one is inflation without self-reproduction of the universe. In this scenario the universe is not stationary. The second regime, which exists in…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
The theory of the inflationary multiverse changes the way we think about our place in the world. According to its most popular version, our world may consist of infinitely many exponentially large parts, exhibiting different sets of…
The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution…
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…
This paper is devoted to memory of late Professor V. G. Bagrov, who was my first teacher in theoretical physics. About 45 years later, theoretical physics has changed and me too. The subject of this paper relates some old ideas in cosmology…
The standard big bang cosmological model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions are summarized. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with…
In this review I consider several different issues related to inflation. I will begin with the wave function of the Universe. This issue is pretty old, but recently there were some new insights based on the theory of the self-reproducing…
This is a review article for The Review of Particle Physics 2026 (aka the Particle Data Book), appearing as Chapter 23. It forms a compact review of our understanding of cosmological inflation near the end of 2025. Topics included are…
After a brief summary of general relativity and cosmology, we present the basic concepts underlying inflation, the currently best motivated models for the early Universe. We describe the simplest inflation models, based on a single scalar…
We provide a pedagogical overview of inflation in string theory. Our theme is the sensitivity of inflation to Planck-scale physics, which we argue provides both the primary motivation and the central theoretical challenge for the subject.…
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…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…