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It is an application of brane cosmology and was proposed by Khoury, Ovrut, Steinhardt and Turok in 2001. It is sometimes called the "big crash" scenario because, in contrast to viewing the big bang as a rapid outward expansion from a gravitational singularity, the ekpyrotic scenario suggests that the beginning of the universe was initiated when a parallel brane collided with our own (and caused the associated expansion). This resulted in the radiant energy and heat of the current universe (hence the name "ekpyrotic", from the Greek for "out of the fire").
Although highly speculative, the ekpyrotic universe is a subject of intense interest in the high energy and astrophysical communities. Critiques of the theory have pointed out that the scenario requires large amounts of fine-tuning to fit in with observations of the universe, such as the cosmic microwave background radiation. The theory's originators have claimed that these problems can be resolved using new forms of perturbation theory necessary in the scenario, but other workers have not been able to reproduce these results. Despite these disputes, and whether or not it is correct as a model of the origin of the universe, the ekpyrotic theory is an excellent demonstration of the new possibilities opened up to theoretical cosmologists by the development of brane cosmology.
Compare against: Cosmic inflation