Constraints on Inflation

Abstract

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 cosmic microwave background radiation is then used in an attempt to constrain the characteristics of such perturbations. Future directions are also explored. The possibility of direct detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background produced during an inflationary phase in the early Universe is briefly discussed, as well as the available evidence regarding the present value of the total energy density in the Universe.

24 pages, Latex, no figures, based on talks given at the Cargese School "Cosmology 2000", to be published in New Astronomy, companion paper to astro-ph/0009491

References in corpus (8)

• The General Primordial Cosmic Perturbation
• On the Non-Gaussianity Observed in the COBE-DMR Sky Maps
• New non-Gaussian feature in COBE-DMR Four Year Maps
• Is the cosmic microwave background really non-Gaussian?
• New Constraints on inflation from the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Gravitational lensing statistics with extragalactic surveys. II. Analysis of the Jodrell Bank-VLA Astrometric Survey
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Inflation Physics from the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure
• Constraining $f(R)$ gravity by the Large Scale Structure
• Inflatonic baryogenesis with large tensor mode
• Light of Planck-2015 on Non-Canonical Inflation
• Early Universe with modified scalar-tensor theory of gravity
• One-loop effective potential in nonlocal scalar field models
• Light polarization oscillations induced by photon-photon scattering
• Collective behavior of light in vacuum
• Starobinsky inflation from new-minimal supergravity
• Evaluation of the cosmological constant in inflation with a massive non-minimal scalar field