Related papers: Inflation and String Cosmology
Attempts to connect string theory with astrophysical observation are hampered by a jargon barrier, where an intimidating profusion of orientifolds, Kahler potentials, etc. dissuades cosmologists from attempting to work out the astrophysical…
A brief review of inflation is presented. After having demonstrated the generality of the inflationary mechanism, the emphasize is put on its simplest realization, namely the single field slow-roll inflationary scenario. Then, it is shown…
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems,…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
This paper presents a review of the basic, model-independent differences between the pre-big bang scenario, arising naturally in a string cosmology context, and the standard inflationary scenario. We use an unconventional approach in which…
We investigate how various inflationary and bouncing cosmologies can be realized by imperfect fluids with a generalized equation of state, in the context of both classical and loop quantum cosmology. With regards to the inflationary…
We respond to the criticisms by Kallosh, Kofman and Linde concerning our proposal of the ekpyrotic universe scenario. We point out a number of errors in their considerations and argue that, at this stage, the ekpyrotic model is a possible…
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…
In this talk we discuss three different issues. First of all, there exist several proposals how to solve cosmological problems by adiabatic expansion of the Universe, without any use of inflation. We explain why these models do not solve…
Cosmological inflation, if it occurred, radically alters the picture of the `big bang', which would merely point to reheating at the end of inflation. Moreover, this reheating may be only local, so that inflation continues elsewhere and…
This is a pedagogical introduction to early cosmology and the host of fundamental physics involved in it (particle physics, grand unification and general relativity). Inflation and the inflaton field are the central theme of this review.…
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of…
I review the present status of the problem of initial conditions for inflation and describe several ways to solve this problem for many popular inflationary models, including the recent generation of the models with plateau potentials…
This paper is intended to offer a pedagogical treatment of cosmological modeling and inflationary cosmology. In recent years, inflation has become accepted as a standard scenario making predictions that are testable by observations of the…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…
The big bang model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories are introduced. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent…
The discovery of the string theory landscape has recently brought attention to the eternal nature of inflation. In contrast to the common belief that eternal inflation may be a generic feature of most inflationary models, in this note we…
Inflation is known to be generically eternal to the future: the false vacuum is thermalized in some regions of space, while inflation continues in other regions. Here, we address the question of whether inflation can also be eternal to the…
The inflationary scenario, which states that the early universe underwent a brief but dramatic period of accelerated spatial expansion, has become the current paradigm of early universe cosmology. Although inflationary cosmology has its…