Related papers: Dynamical zero-temperature phase transitions and c…
Typically cold inflation with positive vacuum energy density dilutes all matter except the quan- tum fluctuations which are stretched outside the Hubble patch during inflation. However the cyclic- inflation scenario, where the universe…
A sweep through a quantum phase transition by means of a time-dependent external parameter (e.g., pressure) entails non-equilibrium phenomena associated with a break-down of adiabaticity: At the critical point, the energy gap vanishes and…
A quantum system can undergo a continuous phase transition at the absolute zero of temperature as some parameter entering its Hamiltonian is varied. These transitions are particularly interesting for, in contrast to their classical finite…
Phase transitions which occur at zero temperature when some non-thermal parameter like pressure, chemical composition or magnetic field is changed are called quantum phase transitions. They are caused by quantum fluctuations which are a…
Cosmological phase transitions are thought to have taken place at the early Universe imprinting their properties on the observable Universe. There is strong evidence that, through the dynamics of a scalar field that lead a second order…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
The mechanism of thermal inflation, a relatively short period of accelerated expansion after primordial inflation, is a desirable ingredient for a certain class of particle physics models if they are not to be in contention with the…
We discuss the effects of cosmic phase transition on the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation. The energy density of the scalar condensation responsible for the phase transition may become sizable at the…
Although the paradigm of inflation has been extensively studied to demonstrate how macroscopic inhomogeneities in our universe originate from quantum fluctuations, most of the established literature ignores the crucial role that…
We present arguments to the effect that time and temperature can be viewed as a form of quantum entanglement. Furthermore, if temperature is thought of as arising from the quantum mechanical tunneling probability this then offers us a way…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
Quantum phase transitions, transitions between many-body ground states, are of extensive interest in research ranging from condensed matter physics to cosmology. Key features of the phase transitions include a stage with rapidly growing new…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…
Since inflationary perturbations must generically couple to all degrees of freedom present in the early Universe, it is more realistic to view these fluctuations as an open quantum system interacting with an environment. Then, on very…
Quantum gravitational back-reaction offers the potential of simultaneously resolving the problem of the cosmological constant and providing a natural model of inflation in which scalars play no special role. In this model inflation begins…
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
We propose a model for early universe cosmology without the need for fundamental scalar fields. Cosmic acceleration and phenomenologically viable reheating of the universe results from a series of energy transitions, where during each…
Quantum phase transitions occur at zero temperature when some non-thermal control-parameter like pressure or chemical composition is changed. They are driven by quantum rather than thermal fluctuations. In this review we first give a…
We show how the quantum-to-classical transition of the cosmological fluctuations produced during an inflationary stage can be described using the consistent histories approach. We identify the corresponding histories in the limit of…
We compute the spectrum of cosmological perturbations in a scenario in which inflation is driven by radiation in a non-commutative space-time. In this scenario, the non-commutativity of space and time leads to a modified dispersion relation…