Provides graduate students with a thorough and up-to-date introduction to inflationary cosmology. Enormous progress has been made in this area in the last few years and this is the first book to provide a modern and unified overview. Covers all aspects of theory and compares predictions with the latest observations. Frequently used symbols x Preface xii Introduction 1(11) This book 1(1) The Universe we see 2(2) Overview: From cosmological inflation to large-scale structure 4(7) Notes on examples 11(1) The Hot Big Bang Cosmology 12(24) The expanding Universe 13(5) Epochs 18(5) Scales 23(3) The cosmic microwave background 26(1) Ingredients for a model of the Universe 27(5) History of our Universe 32(4) Examples 35(1) Inflation 36(22) Motivation for inflation 36(2) Inflation in the abstract 38(2) Scalar fields in cosmology 40(2) Slow-roll inflation 42(6) Exact solutions 48(2) Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of inflation 50(1) Inflationary attractor 51(2) Reheating: Recovering the Hot Big Bang 53(2) Thermal inflation 55(3) Examples 56(2) Simplest Model for the Origin of Structure I 58(47) Introduction 58(1) Sequence of events 59(4) Gaussian perturbations 63(12) Density perturbation: Newtonian treatment 75(9) The Baryon density contrast: Newtonian treatment 84(3) Cosmological perturbation theory 87(6) Evolution equations 93(2) Outside the horizon 95(7) Peculiar velocity in the relativistic domain 102(3) Examples 104(1) Simplest Model for the Origin of Structure II 105(33) From horizon entry to galaxy formation 105(10) The cosmic microwave background anisotropy 115(11) Polarization 126(4) Reionization 130(8) Examples 137(1) Extensions to the Simplest Model 138(26) Modifying the cold dark matter hypothesis 138(5) ACDM model 143(4) Open CDM model 147(5) Fine tuning issues 152(1) Gravitational waves 153(5) Isocurvature perturbations 158(6) Examples 163(1) Scalar Fields and the Vacuum Fluctuation 164(39) Classical scalar field 164(4) Quantized free scalar field in flat space-time 168(5) Several scalar fields 173(4) Vacuum fluctuation of inflation field 177(9) Spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation 186(3) Beyond the slow-roll approximation 189(4) Gravitational waves 193(2) Generating an isocurvature perturbation 195(3) A multicomponent inflation? 198(5) Examples 202(1) Building and Testing Models of Inflation 203(41) Overview 203(1) Form of the scalar field potential 204(7) Single-field models 211(5) Hybrid inflation models 216(9) The spectral index as a discriminator 225(1) Models from extended theories of gravity 226(10) Open inflation models 236(8) Examples 243(1) The Cosmic Microwave Background 244(18) Large angles and the cosmic background explorer (COBE) satellite 244(1) Degree-scale observations and acoustic oscillations 245(9) Aspects of microwave anisotropy satellites 254(8) Examples 261(1) Galaxy Motions and Clustering 262(15) Clustering of galaxies 262(8) Galaxy velocities 270(7) Examples 276(1) The Quasi-Linear Regime 277(24) Gravitational collapse 277(5) Press-Schechter theory 282(2) Theory of peaks 284(1) Numerical simulations 285(4) Applications of Press-Schechter theory 289(7) Reionization of the Universe 296(5) Examples 300(1) Putting Observations Together 301(13) Observations 302(2) Critical-density models 304(4) Low-density models 308(2) Other options 310(2) Summary 312(2) Outlook for the Future 314(2) Advanced Topic: Cosmological Perturbation Theory 316(32) Special relativity 316(4) Fluid flow in special relativity 320(3) Special relativity using generic coordinates 323(4) General relativity 327(6) Cosmological perturbations 333(8) Evolution of the perturbations 341(7) Examples 347(1) Advanced Topic: Diffusion and Freestreaming 348(24) Matter 348(2) Gas dynamics in flat space-time 350(6) Gas dynamics in the perturbed Universe 356(4) Multipoles and the Boltzmann hierarchy 360(4) Polarization 364(4) Initial conditions and the transfer functions 368(4) Examples 371(1) Appendix: Constants and parameters 372(2) Numerical solutions and hints for selected examples 374(3) References 377(16) Index 393