The Early Universe in Loop Quantum Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper reviews how loop quantum cosmology offers insights into the early universe, addressing singularities, inflation, bouncing models, and structure formation with recent methodological advances.

Contribution

It presents new results in structure formation and generalizes methods in loop quantum cosmology for early universe scenarios.

Findings

Addresses singularity resolution in early universe models

Provides new insights into structure formation in loop quantum cosmology

Generalizes existing methods for cosmological applications

Abstract

Loop quantum cosmology applies techniques derived for a background independent quantization of general relativity to cosmological situations and draws conclusions for the very early universe. Direct implications for the singularity problem as well as phenomenology in the context of inflation or bouncing universes result, which will be reviewed here. The discussion focuses on recent new results for structure formation and generalizations of the methods.