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The Chaplygin gas model, characterized by an equation of state of the type $p = - \frac{A}{\rho}$ emerges naturally from the Nambu-Goto action of string theory. This fluid representation can be recast under the form of a tachyonic field given by a Born-Infeld type Lagrangian. At the same time, the Chaplygin gas equation of state can be obtained from a self-interacting scalar field. We show that, from the point of view of the supernova type Ia data, the three representations (fluid, tachyonic, scalar field) lead to the same results. However, concerning the matter power spectra, while the fluid and tachyonic descriptions lead to exactly the same results, the self-interacting scalar field representation implies different statistical estimations for the parameters. In particular, the estimation for the dark matter density parameter in the fluid representation favors a universe dominated almost completely by dark matter, while in the self-interacting scalar field representation the prediction is very closed to that obtained in the $\Lambda$CDM model., Comment: Latex file, 10 pages, 18 figures in EPS format

We consider an inflationary model inspired in the low energy limit of string theory. In this model, the scale factor grows exponentially with time, while the scalar fields are time independent. A perturbation study is performed, and we establish the conditions for such a model to be stable or not. These stability conditions can have consequences either for the structure formation and for the graceful exit problems.