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Inflation

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Astroparticle Physics

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Texts in Physics ((UNTEPH))

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Abstract

The Standard Cosmological Model appears to be very successful in describing observational data, such as the abundances of light nuclei, the isotropic and homogeneous expansion of the universe, and the existence of the cosmic microwave background.

Inflation hasn’t won the race, but so far it’s the only horse.

Andrei Linde

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Boltzmann constant and the curvature parameter are traditionally denoted with the same letter k. From the context it should always be clear, which parameter is meant.

  2. 2.

    As usual, here and in the following the standard notation \(c=1\), \(\hbar =1\), and \(k=1\) (Boltzmann constant) is used.

  3. 3.

    The Lyman-alpha forest describes the absorption lines in the spectrum of distant quasars. These absorption lines at different redshifts do not originate from the quasars themselves, but rather from hydrogen clouds, which are in the way between the quasars and Earth. The distribution of clouds at various redshifts allows to infer results on the structure in the universe.

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Correspondence to Claus Grupen .

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Grupen, C. (2020). Inflation. In: Astroparticle Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27339-2_12

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