Related papers: Inflation, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Pri…
We consider the cosmological application of a (variant of) relatively newly proposed model \cite{1609.06915} unifying inflation, dark energy, dark matter, and the Higgs mechanism. The model was originally defined using additional…
How did it all begin? Although this question has undoubtedly lingered for as long as humans have walked the Earth, the answer still eludes us. Yet since my grandparents were born, scientists have been able to refine this question to a…
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…
Inflationary cosmology has proved to be the most successful at predicting the properties of the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this essay we show that quantum field renormalization significantly…
Recently, a new framework for describing the multiverse has been proposed which is based on the principles of quantum mechanics. The framework allows for well-defined predictions, both regarding global properties of the universe and…
Observable quantities in cosmology are dimensionless, and therefore independent of the units in which they are measured. This is true of all physical quantities associated with the primordial perturbations that source cosmic microwave…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
We show that anthropic selection emerges inevitably in the general framework for prediction in quantum cosmology. There the predictions of anthropic reasoning depend on the prior implied by the universe's quantum state. To illustrate this…
This study reviews the advances made in inflationary theory, especially regarding the seeming disparity between inflation energy and dark energy, and their significance to cosmic evolution as a whole. I attempt to connect the two sources of…
After reviewing the general ideas of quantum cosmology (Wheeler-DeWitt equation, boundary conditions, interpretation of $\psi$), I discuss how these ideas can be tested observationally. Observational predictions differ for different choices…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
To what extent can our limited set of observations be used to pin down the specifics of a ``Theory of Everything''? In the limit where the links are arbitrarily tenuous, a ``Theory of Everything'' might become a ``Theory of Anything''. A…
A specific theoretical framework is important for designing and conducting an experiment, and for interpretation of its results. The field of gravitational physics is expanding, and more clarity is needed. It appears that some popular…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
The formation of structure in the Universe offers some of the most powerful evidence in favour of the existence of dark matter in the Universe. We summarize recent work by ourselves and our collaborators, using linear and quasi-linear…
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…
Models of cosmic inflation posit an early phase of accelerated expansion of the universe, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields in curved spacetime. Though detailed assumptions about fields and couplings vary across models,…
The existence of multiple regions of space beyond the observable Universe (within the so-called "multiverse") where the vacuum energy density takes different values, has been postulated as an explanation for the low non-zero value observed…
We investigate cosmological solutions for the modified gravity theory obtained from quantum relative entropy between the metric of spacetime and the metric induced by the geometry and matter fields. The vacuum equations admit inflationary…
The Big Bang singularity in standard model cosmology suggests a program of study in 'early universe' quantum gravity phenomenology. Inflation is usually thought to undermine this program's prospects by means of a dynamical diluting…