Principles, Progress and Problems in Inflationary Cosmology

Abstract

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 development of the inflationary Universe scenario has opened up a new and extremely promising avenue for connecting fundamental physics with experiment. This article summarizes the principles of inflationary cosmology, discusses progress in the field, focusing in particular on the mechanism by which initial quantum vacuum fluctuations develop into the seeds for the large-scale structure in the Universe, and highlights the important unsolved problems of the scenario. The case is made that new input from fundamental physics is needed in order to solve these problems, and that thus early Universe cosmology can become the testing ground for trans-Planckian physics.

8 pages, 8 figures commissioned article for the AAPPS Bulletin, appeared in 2001

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• Natural Covariant Planck Scale Cutoffs and the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum
• The Inflationary Paradigm: Predictions for CMB
• Conformal models of de Sitter space, initial conditions for inflation and the CMB
• The structure and interpretation of cosmology: Part II - The concept of creation in inflation and quantum cosmology
• Quantum Creation of a Toy Universe without Inflation