相关论文: New Tests of Inflation
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
The increasing precision of cosmological datasets is opening up new opportunities to test predictions from cosmic inflation. Here we study the impact of high precision constraints on the primordial power spectrum and show how a new…
Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role allowing precise determination of various parameters of the `standard' cosmological model. The expectation of the paradigm of inflation and…
Recent measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) indicate that the Universe is flat and that large-scale structure grew via gravitational infall from primordial adiabatic perturbations. Both of these…
Inflation predicts the generation of cosmological perturbations. Usually, the power spectra for the scalar and tensor modes are calculated with help of the slow roll approximation. In the case of power law inflation an exact result is…
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…
The very basics of cosmological inflation are discussed. We derive the equations of motion for the inflaton field, introduce the slow-roll parameters, and present the computation of the inflationary perturbations and their connection to the…
We emphasize that the estimation of cosmological parameters from cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data, such as the recent high resolution maps from BOOMERanG and MAXIMA-1, requires assumptions about the primordial spectra. The…
A short introduction to structure formation is given, followed by a discussion of the possible characteristics of the initial perturbations assuming a generic inflationary origin. Observational data related to large-scale structure and 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…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
I discuss the current status of inflationary cosmology in light of the recent WMAP 3-year data release. The basic predictions of inflation are all supported by the data. Inflation also makes predictions which have not been well tested by…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
This article provides an introductory review of inflation and cosmological perturbation theory. I begin by motivating the need for an epoch of inflation during the early stages of the radiation dominated era, and describe how inflation is…
One of the fundamental and yet untested predictions of inflationary models is the generation of a very weak cosmic background of gravitational radiation. We investigate the sensitivity required for a space-based gravitational wave laser…
We review the constraints that the recently released Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Planck data put on inflation and we argue that single field slow-roll inflationary scenarios (with minimal kinetic term) are favored. Then, within this…
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…
The ability to test and constrain theories of cosmic inflation will advance substantially over the next decade. Key data sources include cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and observations of the distribution of matter at…
In this short review, the predictions of inflation are presented and compared to the most recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy. It is argued that inflation is compatible with these observations but that…
Forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments (CMB) will provide precise new tests of structure-formation theories. The geometry of the Universe may be determined robustly, and the classical cosmological parameters, such as the…