Related papers: Inflation and String Cosmology
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…
After a pedagogical review of elementary cosmology, I go on to discuss some obstacles to obtaining inflationary or accelerating universes in M/String Theory. In particular, I give an account of an old No-Go Theorem to this effect. I then…
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenges-developing a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe and identifying the…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
In the hope of avoiding model dependence of the cosmological observables, phenomenological parametrizations of Cosmic Inflation have recently been proposed. Typically, they are expressed in terms of two parameters associated with an…
In the present work we discuss inflation, dark matter and cosmological evolution in the context of the brane-world scenario. Being string theory inspired, the brane-world models provide corrections to the General Relativity, which is…
In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the…
This article contains a concise review of the theory of inflation. We discuss its main theoretical aspects as well as its observational predictions. We also explain how the most recent astrophysical observations constrain the inflationary…
Cosmic strings, a hot subject in the 1980's and early 1990's, lost its appeal when it was found that it leads to inconsistencies in the power spectrum of the measured cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. However,…
We describe several different regimes which are possible in inflationary cosmology. The simplest one is inflation without self-reproduction of the universe. In this scenario the universe is not stationary. The second regime, which exists in…
It is stressed that the kinematical problems of the standard cosmological model can be solved by a phase of accelerated contraction of the cosmic scale factor. Such a behaviour is only a particular case of a more general ``pre-big-bang"…
In these lectures I review recent attempts to apply string theory to cosmology, including string cosmology and various models of brane cosmology. In addition, the review includes an introduction to inflation as well as a discussion of…
The paper investigates the historical and contemporary pursuit-worthiness of cosmic inflation-the rationale for working on it (rather than necessarily the evidential support for claims to its approximate truth): what reasons existed, and…
Everlasting inflation has far-reaching implications for cosmology and the standing of self-localizing inferences made by observers, which have been subjects of renewed interest in light of the growing acceptance of theory landscapes and the…
We present a simplified review of inflationary cosmology across various modified gravity theories. These include models based on curvature, torsion, and non-metricity. We explore how scalar fields interact with different geometric…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
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 discuss the current status of inflationary cosmology in light of the recent WMAP 3-year data release. The basic predictions of inflation are all supported by the data. Inflation also makes predictions which have not been well tested by…
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
We compute the amount of inflation required to solve the horizon problem of cosmology in the pre-big-bang scenario. First we give a quick overview of string cosmology as developed by Veneziano and collaborators. Then we show that the amount…