Elements of String Cosmology

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 568 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press August 6, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521868750
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521868754
• Book Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 2.8 pounds

Product Review
"The fascinating and emerging science relating string theory's impact on the foundations of primordial cosmology are clearly presented in this detailed text. Designed to present string theory to astrophysicists and, in turn, cosmology to string theorists, the volume presents chapters on basic string cosmology equations, conformal invariance and string effective actions, duality symmetries and cosmological solutions, inflationary kinematics, and the string phase. Subsequent chapters describe scalar perturbations, the anisotropy spectrum of the CMB radiation, dilaton phenomenology, and elements of brane cosmology. Gasperini (theoretical physics, University of Bari, Italy) has presented a Ph.D. course on this topic and organized the chapters and content accordingly, with more advanced topics and computations presented in separate appendices at the end of many of the chapters. The text is designed for teaching graduate courses, and will also be of interest to readers with basic knowledge of relativity and quantum field theory." --Book News

Product Description
The standard cosmological picture of our Universe emerging from a 'big bang' leaves open many fundamental questions which string theory, a unified theory of all forces of nature, should be able to answer. The first book dedicated to string cosmology, it contains a pedagogical introduction to the basic notions of the subject. It describes the new possible scenarios suggested by string theory for the primordial evolution of our Universe. It discusses the main phenomenological consequences of these scenarios, stresses their differences from each other, and compares them to the more conventional models of inflation. The book summarizes over 15 years of research in this field and introduces current advances. It is self-contained, so it can be read by astrophysicists with no knowledge of string theory, and high-energy physicists with little understanding of cosmology. Detailed and explicit derivations of all the results presented provide a deeper appreciation of the subject.