Conceptual Problems of Inflationary Cosmology and a New Approach to Cosmological Structure Formation
Abstract
Description
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a candidate for a unified quantum theory of all four forces of nature. As will be shown, string theory may lead to a cosmological background quite different from an inflationary cosmology, and may admit a new stringy mechanism for the origin of a roughly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological fluctuations.
33 pages, 4 figures Based on an invited talk at "Inflation + 25", Paris, June 2006 To be published in the proceedings (Springer, 2007)
33 pages, 4 figures Based on an invited talk at "Inflation + 25", Paris, June 2006 To be published in the proceedings (Springer, 2007)