Cosmological evolution in brane-worlds with large transverse dimensions: Inflation and dark matter

In the present work we discuss inflation, dark matter and cosmological evolution in the context of the brane-world scenario. Being string theory inspired, the brane-world models provide corrections to the General Relativity, which is considered to be the low-energy limit of string theory. We find that novel cosmologies are obtained, which potentially can provide answers to some of the longstanding problems of modern cosmology, such as the origin and nature of dark energy. At the same time the successes of the standard four-dimensional cosmology are preserved, and in some cases the treatment in the framework of brane cosmology is even more satisfactory.