2005/12/27 by Arjun Berera · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Epistemology #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Inflation (cosmology) #Particle physics #Phenomenology (philosophy) #Philosophy #Physics #String theory #Theoretical physics #Universe #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00107510500392030
published as Contemporary Physics 47, 33 (2006) · 20 pages, 8 figures
openalex publication_date 2005/12/27 · arxiv created 2008/09/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems, for inflation models their importance has only recently started to be appreciated. The article describes the motivation for these phenomena during inflation and then examines their origins from first principles quantum field theory treatments of inflation models. Cosmology today is a data intensive field and this is driving theory to greater precision and predictability. This opens the possibility to consider tests for detecting observational signatures of dissipative processes, which will be discussed. In addition, it will be discussed how particle physics and cosmology are now working in tandem to push the boundaries of our knowledge about fundamental physics.