The Universe Before the Big Bang: Cosmology and String Theory

Review:
What happens to the big bang singularity within string theory? Did time have a beginning? These and other pre-eminent questions, whose implications go far beyond the boundaries of physics and even of science, lie at the forefront of today's research in theoretical particle physics and cosmology. Maurizio Gasperini succeeds in this book in drawing a thorough - yet very accessible and captivating - panorama of the various answers that have so far emerged to those basic questions, and of the cosmological observations which may soon allow a stringent test of our most advanced theoretical ideas.
- Gabriele Veneziano, Co-founder of String Theory

Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. General Relativity and Standard Cosmology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. String Theory, Duality, and the Primordial Universe . . . . . . ....35
4. The Theory of Strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 53
5. Inflation and the Birth of the Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
6. The Cosmological Background of Gravitational Radiation . ...........93
7. Other Relics of the Primordial Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8. QuantumCosmology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143
9. The Future of our Universe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..153
10. Recent Developments: Brane Cosmology Scenarios . . . . . . ........171
11. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .193
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Approved by Englishcology