Inflation, Topological Defects and Baryogenesis: Selected Topics at the Interface between Particles & Fields and Cosmology

Abstract

Modern cosmology provides a connection between the physics of particles and fields and observational cosmology. Making use of this link, a wealth of new observational data can be utilized to explore and constrain theories of fundamental physics. Inflationary Universe models and topological defect theories are the most popular current paradigms for explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. In these lectures, I discuss various aspects of inflation and topological defects in which there has been interesting recent progress or in which there are outstanding problems. Particular emphasis is given to how baryogenesis scenarios can be influenced by inflation and topological defects.