Cosmic Acceleration and Modified Gravitational Models

There is now overwhelming observational evidence that our Universe is accelerating in its expansion. I discuss how modified gravitational models can provide an explanation for this observed late-time cosmic acceleration. We consider specific low-curvature corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action. Many of these models generically contain unstable de Sitter solutions and, depending on the parameters of the theory, late-time accelerating attractor solutions.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, references added; Based on talks given at MRST-04, PASCOS-04 and COSMO-0

Moduli Stabilization and Inflation Using Wrapped Branes

We demonstrate that a gas of wrapped branes in the early Universe can help resolve the cosmological Dine-Seiberg/Brustein-Steinhardt overshoot problem in the context of moduli stabilization with steep potentials in string theory. Starting from this mechanism, we propose a cosmological model with a natural setting in the context of an early phase dominated by brane and string gases. The Universe inflates at early times due to the presence of a wrapped two brane (domain wall) gas and all moduli are stabilized. A natural graceful exit from the inflationary regime is achieved. However, the basic model suffers from a generalized domain wall/reheating problem and cannot generate a scale invariant spectrum of fluctuations without additional physics. Several suggestions are presented to address these issues.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, REVTeX; References added, note adde