Vacuum Fluctuations and Cosmology

The notion of vacuum fluctuations of the gravitational field plays important role in cosmology. The strong variable gravitational field of the very early Universe amplifies these fluctuations and transforms them into macroscopical cosmological perturbations. Since the underlying process is the parametric amplification, the perturbations are placed in squeezed vacuum quantum states. It is possible that we already see the manifestations of these processes in certain cosmological observations.