Back to the article index

Article Contents

ABSTRACT

1.INTRODUCTION

2.RESURRECTING EINSTEIN'S GREATEST BLUNDER

2.1.Cosmology for beginners

2.2.Einstein's "greatest blunder"

2.3.Critical density and the return of the age problem

2.4.The vacuum in quantum field theory

2.5.Vacuum energy in cosmology

3.THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND

3.1.Recombination and the formation of the CMB

3.2.Sachs-Wolfe Effect

3.3.Acoustic oscillations and the horizon at last scattering

4.INFLATION

4.1.The flatness problem

4.2.The horizon problem

4.3.Inflation

4.4.Inflation from scalar fields

4.5.Density fluctuations from inflation

4.6.The primordial power spectrum

4.7.A worked example

4.8.Inflationary "zoology" and the CMB

5.LOOKING FOR SIGNS OF QUANTUM GRAVITY IN INFLATION

6.CONCLUSION

REFERENCES