Related papers: Philosophical Implications of Inflationary Cosmolo…
The recent suggestion that late time quantum dynamics may be important for resolving cosmological issues associated with our observed universe requires a consideration of several subtle issues associated with quantum cosmology, as we…
We review the broad status of cosmology and discuss a model of fluctuational cosmology in which the universe is created in a phase transition like phenomenon mimicking inflation, and which further consistently explains latest observations…
The Hamiltonian of an evolving Universe is shown to be formally equivalent to that of a driven quantum system, whose driving follows from the temporal dependence of the spacetime metric. This analogy allows insights from the field of driven…
The contemporary physics has revealed growing evidences that the emergence can be applied to not only biology and condensed matter systems but also gravity and spacetime. We observe that noncommutative spacetime necessarily implies emergent…
The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution…
In the context of a homogeneous universe, we note that the appearance of aggressively expanding advanced life is geometrically similar to the process of nucleation and bubble growth in a first-order cosmological phase transition. We exploit…
Problems with uniform probabilities on an infinite support show up in contemporary cosmology. This paper focuses on the context of inflation theory, where it complicates the assignment of a probability measure over pocket universes. The…
The existence of initial singularities in expanding universes is proved without assuming the timelike convergence condition. The assumptions made in the proof are ones likely to hold both in open universes and in many closed ones. (It is…
Observations indicate that the universe is effectively flat, but they do not rule out a closed universe. The role of positive curvature is negligible at late times, but can be crucial in the early universe. In particular, positive curvature…
Setting aside anthropic arguments, there is no reason why the universe should initially favour a net expanding phase rather than one experiencing a net contraction. However, a collapsing universe containing "normal" matter will end at a…
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
The discovery of accelerated expansion of the universe opened the possibility of new scenarios for the doom of our spacetime, besides aeternal expansion and a final contraction. In this paper we review the chances which may await our…
The Kalam cosmological argument, of a metaphysical nature, asserts that the universe had a first cause. This study examines the compatibility of its premises through a bibliographic review of advancements in contemporary physics. Quantum…
We discuss three candidate scenarios which seem to allow the possibility that the universe could have existed forever with no initial singularity: eternal infation, cyclic evolution, and the emergent universe. The first two of these…
The time evolution of the universe is usually mathematically described under a continuous time and thus time reversible. Here, the consequences of studying the evolution of a homogenous isotropic universe by time continuous reversible…
We discuss the possibility that the inflationary paradigm, undoubtfully today's best framework to understand all the present cosmological data, may still have some viable challengers. The underlying idea for such discussions is that…
We present a simplified description of expansionistic life in the standard relativistic cosmology. The resulting model is exactly integrable, yielding a simple set of predictive formulas. This allows one to quickly propose new scenarios for…
In this review I consider several different issues related to inflation. I will begin with the wave function of the Universe. This issue is pretty old, but recently there were some new insights based on the theory of the self-reproducing…
The Universe is not isotropic or spatially homogeneous on local scales. The averaging of local inhomogeneities in general relativity can lead to significant dynamical effects on the evolution of the Universe, and even if the effects are at…
The paper discusses the problem of demarcation between the dimensions of natural and the human sciences in contemporary cosmology. In spite of a common presumption that cosmology is a natural science, the specificity of its alleged subject…