Related papers: Why the Universe Started from a Low Entropy State
Classical and quantum gravitational instabilities, can, respectively, inflate and warm up a primordial Universe satisfying a superstring-motivated principle of "Asymptotic Past Triviality". A physically viable big bang is thus generated…
We study an inflation model with a flat scalar potential supported by observations and find that slow-roll inflation can emerge after a quasi-cyclic phase of the Universe, where it undergoes repeated expansions and contractions for a finite…
Supersolid inflation is a class of inflationary theories that simultaneously breaks time and space reparameterization invariance during inflation, with distinctive features for the dynamics of cosmological fluctuations. We investigate…
Non-singular bouncing cosmologies are well--motivated models for the early universe. Recent observational data are consistent with positive spatial curvature and allow for a natural collapsing and bouncing phase in the very early universe.…
We discuss applications of perturbative quantum gravity in the theory of very early quantum Universe and quantum cosmology. Consistency of the theoretical formalism for quantum effects of matter and correspondence with observational status…
We suggest that the "Big Bang" may be a result of the first-order phase transition driven by changing scalar curvature of the 4D space-time in expanding cold Universe, filled with nonlinear scalar field $\phi $ and neutral matter with…
The pre-big-bang cosmology inspired by superstring theories has been suggested as an alternative to slow-roll inflation. We analyze, in both the Jordan and Einstein frames, the effect of spatial curvature on this scenario and show that too…
Two extensions of ideas lying in the basis of the inflationary scenario of the early Universe and their effect on the large scale structure of the present-day Universe are discussed. The first of them is the possibility of fast phase…
We investigate the Selection of Original Universe Proposal (SOUP) of Tye et al. and show that as it stands, this proposal is flawed. The corrections to the Euclidean gravity action that were to select a Universe with a sufficiently large…
We consider the classical evolution of the inflaton field $\phi(t)$ and the Hubble parameter $H(t)$ in homogeneous and isotropic single-field inflation models. Under an extremely broad assumption, we show that the universe generically…
We study how the initial inhomogeneities of the universe affect the onset of inflation in the closed universe. We consider the model of a chaotic inflation which is driven by a massive scalar field. In order to construct an inhomogeneous…
We study the generation of density perturbations in the ekpyrotic scenario for the early universe, including gravitational backreaction. We expose interesting subtleties that apply to both inflationary and ekpyrotic models. Our analysis…
Current observations of Type Ia supernovae provide evidence for cosmic acceleration out to a redshift of $z \lsim 1$, leading to the possibility that the universe is entering an inflationary epoch. However, inflation can take place only if…
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…
We discuss the initial conditions problem for inflation driven by the vacuum energy of a plateau potential, and in particular the Starobinsky inflation. We show that the supergravity embedding of the $R+R^2$ theory naturally decreases the…
At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions…
Inflation may have been driven by a component which violated the Null-Energy Condition, thereby leading to {\it super inflation}. We provide the formalism to study cosmological perturbations when such a component is described by a scalar…
In this Letter we discuss the issues of the graceful exit from inflation and of matter creation in the context of a recent scenario \cite{RHBrev} in which the back-reaction of long wavelength cosmological perturbations induces a negative…
Variation of constants in the very early universe can generate inflation. We consider a scenario where the strong coupling constant was changing in time and where the gluon condensate underwent a phase transition ending the inflation.
The leading account of several salient observable features of our universe today is provided by the theory of cosmic inflation. But an important and thus far intractable question is whether inflation is generic, or whether it is finely…