Cosmological Inflation, Microwave Background Anisotropies and Large Scale Structure of the Universe

Abstract

Cosmological inflation provides the simplest and most promising mechanism for generating fluctuations for structure formation. Using powerful Hamilton-Jacobi methods, I will describe (1) how to compute density fluctuations and cosmic microwave anisotropies arising from inflation, and (2) improvements of the Zel'dovich approximation describing gravitational collapse. I compare these results with the latest cosmological observations.

Comments: Corrected version (Latex bugs removed), 34 pages, RevTex using Latex 2.09, Hard copy figures will be sent upon request. (To appear in Proceedings of the International School of Astrophysics ``D. Chalonge'' Third Course: Current Topics in Astrofundamental Physics Erice, Italy, September 4-16, 1994 Edited by N. Sanchez (Kluwer Academic Publishers))