Squeezed Vacua and the Quantum Statistics of Cosmological Particle Creation

We use the language of squeezed states to give a systematic description of two issues in cosmological particle creation: (a) Dependence of particle creation on the initial state specified; we consider in particular the number state, the coherent state and the squeezed state; (b) the relation of spontaneous and stimulated particle creation and their dependence on the initial state. We also present results for the fluctuations in particle number in anticipation of its relevance to defining noise in quantum fields and the vacuum susceptibility of space-time.