Related papers: Inflation Unloaded
The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
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…
Informed by a quantum information perspective, we interpret cosmological expansion of space as growing entanglement between underlying degrees of freedom. In particular, we focus on inflationary cosmology, which, while being a successful…
Inter alia, the high precision WMAP data on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation marginally indicate that the universe has positively curved (and hence spherical) spatial sections. In this paper, we take this data seriously and consider…
A novel scalar field free approach to cosmic inflation is presented. The inflationary Universe and the radiation dominated Universe are shown, within the framework of unified brane cosmology, to be two different phases governed by one and…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
Inflationary cosmology proposes that the early Universe undergoes accelerated expansion, driven, in simple scenarios, by a single scalar field, or inflaton. The form of the inflaton potential determines the initial spectra of density…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
Using the fact that we only observe those modes which exit the Hubble horizon during inflation, one can calculate the entanglement entropy of such long-wavelength perturbations by tracing out unobservable sub-Hubble fluctuations they are…
I present a pedagogical review of inflation and the cosmic microwave background. I describe how a short period of accelerated expansion can replace the special initial conditions of the standard big bang model. I also describe the…
Astrophysical observations provide the best evidence of physics beyond the particle physicists' standard model. Over the past decade, the case has solidified for inflation, dark energy, dark matter and massive neutrinos. In this report we…
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.…
From the damping of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum at large scale and the recent accelerating expansion of the Universe, we find that, there may be a largest scale which we can detect in the…
The end of inflation is connected to the standard cosmological scenario through reheating. During reheating, the inflaton oscillates around the minimum of the potential and thus decays into the daughter particles that populate the Universe…
In this paper we put forward the idea that the comoving Hubble horizon undergoes multiple stages of contraction (a.k.a. inflationary phase) and expansion. The observable inflation, that produces the CMB anisotropies and generates primordial…
We discuss the large-scale structure of the universe in inflationary cosmology and the implications that it may have for the long-term future of civilizations. Although each civilization is doomed to perish, it may be possible to transmit…
According to the most popular scenario, the early Universe should have experienced an accelerated expansion phase, called Cosmological Inflation, after which the standard Big Bang Cosmology would have taken place giving rise to the…
(Abridged) Does inflation have to happen all in one go? The answer is a resounding no! All cosmological problems can be solved by a sequence of short bursts of cosmic acceleration, interrupted by short epochs of decelerated expansion. The…
An outgrowth of the idea of inflation is advanced. In the inflation regime, the singularity condition is broken. Equations which govern inflation are invariant under time reversal, so that they describe deflation as well. Those two…