Article based on a talk presented at "The Early Universe and Cosmological Observations: a Critical Review", Cape Town, July 2001.
astro-ph/0109439

For a postscript version of the article, click here.

Abstract. This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or of subsets of inflationary models.

Table of Contents

• OVERVIEW
• INFLATIONARY COSMOLOGY: MODELS
• INFLATIONARY COSMOLOGY: PERTURBATIONS
• TESTING INFLATION
• Quantifying microwave background anisotropies
• The key tests of inflation
• Spatial flatness
• Gaussianity and adiabaticity
• Vector and tensor perturbations
• Growing mode perturbations
• PRESENT AND FUTURE
• The current status of inflation
• Prospects for the future
• NEW DIRECTIONS
• The braneworld
• The Ekpyrotic Universe
• SUMMARY
• REFERENCES