Related papers: Inflation and String Cosmology
We investigate the nucleation of circular cosmic strings in models of generalized inflationary universes with an accelerating scale factor. We consider toy cosmological models of a smooth inflationary exit and transition into a flat…
We present a study of open inflation cosmological scenarios in which cosmic strings form betwen the two inflationary epochs. It is shown that in these models strings are stretched outside the horizon due to the inflationary expansion but…
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
The next decade will feature an abundance of novel cosmological data, while many fundamental questions about inflation remain. Given this, there is ample need for maximally efficient calculations, especially in non-standard scenarios for…
Standard D-term inflation is studied in the framework of supergravity. D-term inflation produces cosmic strings, however it can still be compatible with CMB measurements without invoking any new physics. The cosmic strings contribution to…
A natural consequence of string theory is a non-commutative structure of space-time on microscopic scales. The existence of a minimal length, and a modification of the effective field theory are two consequences of this space-time…
The very basics of cosmological inflation are discussed. We derive the equations of motion for the inflaton field, introduce the slow-roll parameters, and present the computation of the inflationary perturbations and their connection to the…
String Gas Cosmology is a model of the evolution of the very early universe based on fundamental principles and key new degrees of freedom of string theory which are different from those of point particle field theories. In String Gas…
The previously proposed class of phenomenological inflationary models in which the assumption of inflaton slow-roll is replaced by the more general, constant-roll condition is compared with the most recent cosmological observational data,…
Nonminimal coupling of the inflaton field to the Ricci curvature of spacetime is generally unavoidable, and the paradigm of inflation should be generalized by including the corresponding term in the Lagrangian of the inflationary theory.…
`Old' String Theory is a theory of one-dimensional extended objects, whose vibrations correspond to excitations of various target-space field modes including gravity. In these lectures I will give an introduction to low-energy Effective…
We motivate the study of chiral cosmic strings through a scenario of structure formation which mixes D-term inflation and strings. We then discuss some properties of chiral cosmic strings, and results regarding their evolution and possible…
A popular science article designed to introduce people familiar with basic cosmological nomenclature with models alternative to cosmological inflation. The paper briefly discusses the modern view of the Big Bang model, inflation (both its…
These lecture notes are organized into ten lessons that summarize the status of inflationary cosmology.
I review some aspects of obtaining inflation from string theory, in particular brane-antibrane inflation within the framework of KKLMMT, and racetrack inflation. Further, I discuss recent work on the problem of reheating after…
This note makes a self-contained exposition of the basic facts of big bang cosmology as they relate to inflation. The fundamental problems with that model are then explored. A quartic scalar potential model of inflation is evaluated which…
We comment on the relation between string theory and empirical science, grounding our discussion in cosmology, a subject with increasingly precise data in which this connection operates at several levels. It is important to take into…
A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that…
We re-analyze the question of the use of cosmological observations to infer the present state and future evolution of our patch of the universe. In particular, we discuss under which conditions one might be able to infer that our patch will…
Cosmology motivated by string theory has been studied extensively in the recent literature. String theory is promising because it has interesting features such as unifying gravity, electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces. However,…