Probing Inflation and Dark Energy with Current Cosmological Observations

There is compelling evidence that the Universe is undergoing a late phase of accelerated expansion. One of the simplest explanations for this behaviour is the presence of dark energy. A plethora of microphysical models for dark energy have been proposed. The hope is that, with the ever increasing precision of cosmological surveys, it will be possible to precisely pin down the model. We show that this is unlikely and that, at best, we will have a phenomenological description f...

The cosmological model best capable of fitting current observational data features two separate epochs during which the Universe is accelerating. During the earliest stages of the Universe, such acceleration is known as cosmological inflation, believed to explain the global properties of the Universe and the origin of structure. Observations of the present state of the Universe strongly suggest that its density is currently dominated by dark energy with properties equivalent ...

Using the evolution history of the universe, one can make constraint on the parameter space of dynamic dark energy models. We discuss two different parameterized dark energy models. Our results further restrict the combined constraints obtained from supernova and WMAP observations. From the allowed parameter space, it is found that our universe will experience an eternal acceleration. We also estimate the bound on the physically relevant regions both in the re-inflationary an...

We consider the fate of the observable universe in the light of the discovery of a dark energy component to the cosmic energy budget. We extend results for a cosmological constant to a general dark energy component and examine the constraints on phenomena that may prevent the eternal acceleration of our patch of the universe. We find that the period of accelerated cosmic expansion has not lasted long enough for observations to confirm that we are undergoing inflation; such an...

This article gives a brief overview of the status of attempts to constrain inflation using observations, and examines prospects for future developments.

We propose an explanation for the present accelerated expansion of the universe that does not invoke dark energy or a modification of gravity and is firmly rooted in inflationary cosmology.

Observations conducted over the last few decades show that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. In the standard model of cosmology, this accelerated expansion is attributed to a dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant. It is conceivable, however, for the dark energy to exhibit mild dynamics (so that its energy density changes with time rather than having a constant value), or for the accelerated expansion of the Universe to be caused by some mechanism oth...

Observational evidence indicating that the expansion of the universe is accelerating has surprised cosmologists in recent years. Cosmological models have sought to explain this acceleration by incorporating `dark energy', of which the traditional cosmological constant is just one possible candidate. Several cosmological models involving an evolving equation of state of the dark energy have been proposed, as well as possible energy exchange to other components, such as dark ma...

We show that current cosmic acceleration can be explained by an almost massless scalar field experiencing quantum fluctuations during primordial inflation. Provided its mass does not exceed the Hubble parameter today, this field has been frozen during the cosmological ages to start dominating the universe only recently. By using supernovae data, completed with baryonic acoustic oscillations from galaxy surveys and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, we infer the energy ...

I discuss how parameters describing inflation in the very early universe may be related to primordial perturbation spectra. Precision observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) such as those provided by the WMAP satellite offer an unprecedented window onto the physics of the very early universe. To theorists exploring speculative models of physics at high energies, the CMB offers us the chance to put our ideas to the test.