相关论文: Inflation and Cosmological Perturbations
In our quest to understand the generation of cosmological perturbations, we face two serious obstacles: we do not have direct information about the environment experienced by primordial perturbations during inflation, and our observables…
Suppose that the early Universe starts with a quantum spacetime originated cosmological $\Lambda$-term at the Planck scale $M_{\rm pl}$. The cosmological energy density $\rho_{_{_\Lambda}}$ drives inflation and simultaneously reduces its…
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…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
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…
Inflationary cosmology proposes that the early Universe undergoes accelerated expansion, driven, in simple scenarios, by a single scalar field, or inflaton. The form of the inflaton potential determines the initial spectra of density…
Inflationary cosmology has proved to be the most successful at predicting the properties of the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this essay we show that quantum field renormalization significantly…
The current status of early universe cosmology can be summarized as precision, but inherently limited, data requiring explanation from precision and robust theory. Specifically inflation is presently the single concrete hope for solving the…
Inflation as the leading paradigm depicting the very early universe physics could leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Using currently available CMB observations, we give the tightest constraints on inflation…
Extended inflation is a promising new approach to implementing the inflationary universe scenario. This paper reviews recent advances including a new, more robust mechanism for ending extended inflation, a new prediction for the density…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
Astrophysical observations provide the best evidence of physics beyond the particle physicists' standard model. Over the past decade, the case has solidified for inflation, dark energy, dark matter and massive neutrinos. In this report we…
For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…
Inflation creates large-scale cosmological density perturbations that are characterized by an isotropic, homogeneous, and Gaussian random distribution about a locally flat background. Even in a flat universe, the spatial curvature measured…
Inflation is most often described using quantum field theory (QFT) on a fixed, curved spacetime background. Such a description is valid only if the spatial volume of the region considered is so large that its size and shape moduli behave…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics will be made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of these links. Our…
These lecture notes provide an introduction to cosmic inflation. In particular I will review the basic concepts of inflation, generation of density perturbations, and reheating after inflation.
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
Quintessential inflation provides a unified description of inflation and dark energy in terms of a single scalar degree of freedom, the cosmon. We present here a comprehensive overview of this appealing paradigm, highlighting its key…