Related papers: A Fly in the SOUP
Deriving the Einstein field equations (EFE) with matter fluid from the action principle is not straightforward, because mass conservation must be added as an additional constraint to make rest-frame mass density variable in reaction to…
In this paper we present an informal description of the Cyclic Inflation scenario which allows our universe to "start" with a negative potential energy, inflate, and then gracefully exit to a positive potential energy universe. We discuss…
It is generally believed that inflationary cosmology explains the isotropy, large scale homogeneity and flatness as well as predicting the deviations from homogeneity of our universe. We show that this is not the only cosmology which can…
Closed, singularity-free, inflationary cosmological models have recently been studied in the context of general relativity. Despite their appeal, these so called emergent models suffer from a number of limitations. These include the fact…
Inflation in the early Universe is one of the most promising probes of gravity in the high-energy regime. However, observable scales give access to a limited window in the inflationary dynamics. In this essay, we argue that quantum…
The influence of recent detections of a finite vacuum energy ("cosmological constant") on our formulation of anthropic conjectures, particularly the so-called Final Anthropic Principle is investigated. It is shown that non-zero vacuum…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
Selection effects in cosmology are often invoked to "explain" why some of the fundamental constant of Nature, and in particular the cosmological constant, take on the value they do in our Universe. We briefly review this probabilistic…
The probability of there being sufficient inflation to solve the fine-tuning associated with the horizon and flatness problems has recently been shown to be exponentially small, within the context of classical general relativity. Here this…
We contrast the possibility of inflation starting a) from the universe's inception or b) from an earlier non-inflationary state. Neither case is ideal since a) assumes quantum mechanical reasoning is straightforwardly applicable to the…
One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the…
We consider the Standard Models of particle physics and hot big bang cosmology, and review the theoretical and experimental motivations for extending these models to include supersymmetry and inflation. An obvious extension would be to…
The Big Bang singularity in standard model cosmology suggests a program of study in 'early universe' quantum gravity phenomenology. Inflation is usually thought to undermine this program's prospects by means of a dynamical diluting…
In quantum cosmology the closed universe can spontaneously nucleate out of the state with no classical space and time. For the universe filled with a vacuum of constant energy density the semiclassical tunneling nucleation probability can…
The Universe is currently in a phase of accelerated expansion, a fact that was experimentally proven in the late 1990s. Cosmological models involving scalar fields allow the description of this accelerated expansion regime in the Cosmos and…
We propose a scenario of the beginning of inflation in which the non-vacuum value of the scalar field that drives inflation develops dynamically due to the non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this scenario, inflation emerges as an…
We investigate a conformal invariant gravitational model which is taken to hold at pre-inflationary era. The conformal invariance allows to make a dynamical distinction between the two unit systems (or conformal frames) usually used in…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
A wide variety of vacua, and their cosmological realization, may provide an explanation for the apparently anthropic choices of some parameters of particle physics and cosmology. If the probability on various parameters is weighted by…
We present a natural scenario for obtaining an open universe ($\Omega _0<1$) through inflation. In this scenario, there are two epochs of inflationary expansion---an epoch of `old inflation,' during which the inflaton field is stuck in a…