Related papers: Inflation, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Pri…
Current cosmological observations indicate a preference for a cosmological constant that is drastically smaller than what can be explained by conventional particle physics. The Causal Entropic Principle (Bousso, {\it et al}.) provides an…
Recent developments in cosmology suggest that much of the universe is in a state of explosive, accelerated expansion, called inflation. We live in a "bubble" where inflation has ended, and other bubbles with diverse properties are…
The cosmic inflation hypothesis, its relation to fundamental theory on the beginning of the universe, and the light that both shed on how the various elements and their relative amounts came into existence. The fundamental factors…
The observable universe is fundamentally inhomogeneous and anisotropic. Quantum description of the generation of these inhomogeneities and anisotropies is ill-understood and unsatisfactory. After providing a brief account of the standard…
We discuss the anthropic principle when applied to the holographic dark energy. We find that if the amplitude of the density fluctution is variable, the holographic dark energy fares better than the cosmological constant. More generally,…
Warm inflation has normalized two ideas in cosmology, that in the early universe the initial primordial density perturbations generally could be of classical rather than quantum origin and that during inflation, particle production from…
The status of quantum cosmologies as testable models of the early universe is assessed in the context of inflation. While traditional Wheeler-DeWitt quantization is unable to produce sizable effects in the cosmic microwave background, the…
Inflation is a promising solution to many problems of the standard Big-Bang cosmology. Nevertheless, inflationary models have proved less compelling. In this chapter, we discuss why supersymmetry has led to more natural models of inflation.…
We explain why it is so difficult and perhaps even impossible to increase the cosmological tensor-to-scalar perturbation ratio during the post-inflationary evolution of the universe. Nevertheless, contrary to some recent claims, tensor…
This contribution consists of two parts. In the first part, I review the tunneling approach to quantum cosmology and comment on the alternative approaches. In the second part, I discuss the relation between quantum cosmology and eternal…
In the context of open inflation, we calculate the probability distribution for the density parameter $\Omega$. A large class of two field models of open inflation do not lead to infinite open universes, but to an ensemble of inflating…
It is possible that the scale of gravity, parameterized by the apparent Planck mass, may obtain different values within different universes in an encompassing multiverse. We investigate the range over which the Planck mass may scan while…
The particle production process is reviewed, through which cosmic inflation can produce a scale invariant superhorizon spectrum of perturbations of suitable fields starting from their quantum fluctuations. Afterwards, in the context of the…
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…
Inflation models are numerous. It is extremely difficult, if possible at all, to identify the actual underlying inflation model of our primordial universe. Thus, for the purpose of proving/falsifying inflation and using inflation to probe…
Inflation is considered as the best theory of the early universe by a very large fraction of cosmologists. However, the validity of a scientific model is not decided by counting the number of its supporters and, therefore, this dominance…
We propose using fuzzy axion dark matter to test the anthropic principle. A very light axion can be directly detectable, at least by black hole superradiance effects. The idea then is that gravitational and astrophysical observations can…
We propose a Curvature Principle to describe the dynamics of interacting universes in a multi-universe scenario and show, in the context of a simplified model, how interaction drives the cosmological constant of one of the universes toward…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
After introducing gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory we give an improved set of governing equations for multiple fluids including energy transfer. Having defined adiabatic and entropic perturbations we derive the…