Related papers: Trans-Planckian Physics and Inflationary Cosmology
Cosmic inflation is the cornerstone of modern cosmology. In particular, following the Planck mission reports presented in 2015 regarding cosmic microwave background (CMB), there is an increasing interest in searching for inflaton candidates…
Using the dS/QFT correspondence in the context of inflation allows for the study of interesting, otherwise inaccessible physics. In particular, by studying inflation via its dual field theory at the boundary of the de Sitter space, it may…
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…
Random noise arises in many physical problems in which the observer is not tracking the full system. A case in point is inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for describing the very early universe, where one is often interested only…
We consider a minimum uncertainty vacuum choice at a fixed energy scale Lambda as an effective description of trans-Planckian physics, and discuss its implications for the linear perturbations of a massless scalar field in power-law…
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…
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…
Currently there is no definitive description for the accelerated expansion of the Universe at both early and late times; we know these two periods as the epochs of inflation and dark energy. Contained within this Thesis are two studies of…
Recent detection of $B$-mode polarization induced from tensor perturbations by the BICEP2 experiment implies so-called large field inflation, where an inflaton field takes super-Planckian expectation value during inflation, at a high energy…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
An exploratory study of the cosmology of moduli in string theory. Moduli are argued to be natural inflaton fields and lead to a robust inflationary cosmology in which inflation takes place at the top of domain walls. The amplitude of…
This paper investigates Starobinsky's model of inflation driven by the trace anomaly of conformally coupled matter fields. This model does not suffer from the problem of contrived initial conditions that occurs in most models of inflation…
Apart from the assumption that the inflation started at an infinite time in the past, the more realistic initial state of the quantum fluctuations is described by a mixed quantum state imposed at a finite value of the initial time. One of…
A self-consistent pre-inflationary extension of the inflationary scenario with the Starobinsky potential, favored by Planck data, is studied using techniques from loop quantum cosmology (LQC). The results are compared with the quadratic…
Although the paradigm of inflation has been extensively studied to demonstrate how macroscopic inhomogeneities in our universe originate from quantum fluctuations, most of the established literature ignores the crucial role that…
In the framework of scalar-tensor theories of gravity, we construct a new kind of cosmological model that conflates inflation and ekpyrosis. During a phase of conflation, the universe undergoes accelerated expansion, but with crucial…
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.…
In this paper we propose a novel unified cosmological model that connects a pre-inflationary epoch, starting at the Planckian time, with the onset of inflation within a single scalar-field framework. The pre-inflationary phase is…
The inflationary and pre-inflationary evolution of scalar modes of cosmological perturbations in a closed universe is analyzed for a loop quantum cosmology model with an inflationary regime consistent with the constraints on inflation…
In this thesis, we discuss several instances in which non-linear behaviour affects cosmological evolution in the early Universe. We begin by reviewing the standard cosmological model and the tools used to understand it theoretically and to…