Designing Cyclic Universe Models

Our first goal in this work is to study general and model-independent properties of cyclic cosmologies. The large number of studies of bouncing cosmologies and different cyclic scenarios published recently calls for a proper understanding of the universal properties of cyclic models. We thus first review and further elaborate the common physical and geometrical properties of various classes of cyclic models and then discuss how cyclic Universe can be treated as a dynamic syst...

We introduce a string-inspired model for a bouncing/cyclic universe, utilizing the scalar-tachyon coupling as well as contribution from curvature in a closed universe. The universe undergoes the locked inflation, tachyon matter dominated rolling expansion, turnaround and contraction, as well as the subsequent deflation and "bounce" in each cycle of the cosmological evolution. We perform extensive analytic and numerical studies of the above evolution process. The minimum size ...

Cosmological models involving a bounce from a contracting to an expanding universe can address the standard cosmological puzzles and generate "primordial" density perturbations without the need for inflation. Some such models, in particular the ekpyrotic and cyclic models that we focus on, fit rather naturally into string theory. We discuss a number of topics related to these models: the reasoning that leads to the ekpyrotic phase, the predictions for upcoming observations, t...

We summarize our work on constant roll inflationary models. It was understood recently that constant roll inflation, in a regime beyond the slow roll approximation, can give models that are in agreement with the observational constraints. We describe a new class of constant roll inflationary models and investigate the behavior of scalar perturbations in them. We also comment on other non-slow roll regimes of inflation.

In this paper we present an informal description of the Cyclic Inflation scenario which allows our universe to "start" with a negative potential energy, inflate, and then gracefully exit to a positive potential energy universe. We discuss how this scenario fares in comparison with the standard inflationary paradigm with respect to the classic cosmological puzzles associated with the horizon, flatness and isotropy of our current universe. We also discuss some of the most debil...

Recent measurements at the LHC suggest that the current Higgs vacuum could be metastable with a modest barrier (height 10^{10-12}{GeV})^{4}) separating it from a ground state with negative vacuum density of order the Planck scale. We note that metastability is problematic for big bang to end one cycle, bounce, and begin the next. In this paper, motivated by the approximate scaling symmetry of the standard model of particle physics and the primordial large-scale structure of t...

In this paper, we use a known duality between expanding and contracting cosmologies to construct a dual of the inflationary flow hierarchy applicable to contracting cosmologies such as Ekpyrotic and Cyclic models. We show that the inflationary flow equations are invariant under the duality and therefore apply equally well to inflation or to cyclic cosmology. We construct a self-consistent small-parameter approximation dual to the slow-roll approximation in inflation, and calc...

We investigate the post-bounce background dynamics in a certain class of single bounce scenarios studied in the literature, in which the cosmic bounce is driven by a scalar field with negative exponential potential such as the ekpyrotic potential. We show that those models can actually lead to cyclic evolutions with repeated bounces. These cyclic evolutions, however, do not account for the currently observed late-time accelerated expansion and hence are not cosmologically via...

In this paper we illustrate an interesting example of low scale inflation with an extremely large number of e-foldings. This realization can be implemented easily in hybrid inflation model where usually inflation ends via phase transition. However this phase transition can be so prolong that there is a subsequent epoch of slow roll inflation governed by the dynamics of two fields. This second bout of inflation can even resolve the $\eta$ problem which plagues certain kind of ...

In this paper we study canonical scalar field models with a varying second slow-roll parameter, that allow transitions between constant-roll eras. In the models with two constant-roll eras it is possible to avoid fine-tunings in the initial conditions of the scalar field. We mainly focus on the stability of the resulting solutions and we also investigate if these solutions are attractors of the cosmological system. We shall calculate the resulting scalar potential and by usin...