Related papers: String Cosmology: Basic Ideas and General Results
After recalling a few basic concepts from cosmology and string theory, I will discuss the main ideas/assumptions underlying string cosmology and show how these lead to a two-parameter family of ``minimal" models. I will then explain how to…
We review the current observational status of string cosmology when confronted with experimental datasets. We begin by defining common observational parameters and discuss how they are determined for a given model. Then we review the…
String cosmology aims at providing a reliable description of the very early Universe in the regime where standard-model physics is no longer appropriate, and where we can safely apply the basic ingredients of superstring models such as…
An overview is given of the formulation of low-energy string cosmologies together with examples of particular solutions, successes and problems of the theory.
We critically assess the twin prospects of describing the observed universe in string theory, and using cosmological experiments to probe string theory. For the purposes of this short review, we focus on the limitations imposed by our…
The Standard Model is the low-energy limit of a microscopic theory which includes extra dimensions and new symmetries. A part of my thesis consisted in constructing a new class of models with two extra dimensions. We showed that these…
This article briefly summarizes the motivations for -- and recent progress in -- searching for cosmological configurations within string theory, with a focus on how much we might reasonably hope to learn about fundamental physics from…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
Cosmic strings provide a radically different paradigm for the formation of structure to the prevailing inflationary one. They afford some extra technical complications: for example, the calculation of the power spectrum of matter and…
String theory provides the only consistent framework so far that unifies all interactions including gravity. We discuss gravity and cosmology in string theory. Conventional notions from general relativity like geometry, topology etc. are…
The interplay between string theory and cosmology is very promising. Since string theory will yield a quantum theory of space-time and unify all forces of nature, it has the potential of addressing many of the conceptual problems of the…
We present a self-contained summary of the theory of linear cosmological perturbations. We emphasize the effect of the six parameters of the minimal cosmological model, first, on the spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background temperature…
We investigate the string configuration that, in the framework of the theoretical scenario introduced in [1], corresponds to the most entropic configuration in the phase space of all the configurations of the universe. This describes a…
Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model. One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic…
We show that cosmological observables can constrain the topology of the compact additional dimensions predicted by string theory. To do this, we develop a general strategy for relating cosmological observables to the microscopic parameters…
These lectures present a brief review of inflationary cosmology, provide an overview of the theory of cosmological perturbations, and then focus on the conceptual problems of the current paradigm of early universe cosmology, thus motivating…
We review some aspects of moduli in string theory. We argue that one should focus on {\it approximate moduli spaces}, and that there is evidence that such spaces exist non-perturbatively. We ask what it would mean for string theory to…
The cosmological constant is an unexplained until now phenomena of nature that requires an explanation through string effects. The apparent discrepancy between theory and experiment is enourmous and has already been explained several times…
Theories of the cosmological constant fall into two classes, those in which the vacuum energy is fixed by the fundamental theory and those in which it is adjustable in some way. For each class we discuss key challenges. The string theory…