Related papers: The Return of a Static Universe and the End of Cos…
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
A model for gravitational collapse where the event horizon is a quantum critical phase transition is extended to provide an explanation for the origin of the observable universe, where the expanding universe that we observe today was…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly and indirectly from a large body of observational evidence. The simplest and most theoretically appealing possibility is the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant).…
We have fossil evidence from the thermal background radiation that our universe expanded from a considerably hotter denser state. We have a well defined and testable description of the expansion, the relativistic Friedmann-Lemaitre model.…
In the last year, several pieces of evidence have pointed to a possible deviation from the standard cosmological model, $\Lambda$CDM. The recent work by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration reports a preference in the ballpark of…
The near-isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is considered to be the strongest indication for the homogeneity and isotropy of the universe, a cornerstone of most cosmological analysis. We derive new theorems which extend the…
We propose a time-varying cosmological constant with a fixed equation of state, which evolves mainly through its interaction with the background during most of the long history of the universe. However, such interaction does not exist in…
The current standard model of cosmology, the LambdaCDM model, is based on the homogeneous FLRW solutions of the Einstein equations to which some perturbations are added to account for the CMB features and structure formation at large…
The influence of recent detections of a finite vacuum energy ("cosmological constant") on our formulation of anthropic conjectures, particularly the so-called Final Anthropic Principle is investigated. It is shown that non-zero vacuum…
Several kinds of astronomical observations, interpreted in the framework of the standard Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology, have indicated that our universe is dominated by a Cosmological Constant. The dimming of distant Type Ia…
Based on the cosmological results of the Planck Mission, we show that all parameters describing our Universe within the \Lambda CDM model can be constructed from a small set of numbers known from conspiracy theory. Our finding is confirmed…
Recent astronomical observations strongly indicate that the current Universe is undergoing an accelerated phase of expansion. The discovery of this fact was unexpected and resulted in the comeback of cosmological constant. The conception of…
Some remarkable examples of alternative cosmological theories are reviewed here, ranging from a compilation of variations on the Standard Model through the more distant quasi-steady-state cosmology, plasma cosmology, or universe models as a…
A basic modern picture of the universe is given here. The lectures start from the historical ideas of a static universe. Then I move on to Newtonian cosmology and derive the main cosmological equations in the framework of Newtonian…
The accelerating expansion of the universe is the most surprising cosmological discovery in many decades. In this short review, we briefly summarize theories for the origin of cosmic acceleration and the observational methods being used to…
We discuss the cosmological constant problem, at the minisuperspace level, within the framework of the so-called normalized general relativity (NGR). We prove that the Universe cannot be closed, and reassure that the accompanying…
We investigate the coupled system of gravity and a scalar with exponential potential. The energy momentum tensor of the scalar field induces a time-dependent cosmological ``constant''. This adjusts itself dynamically to become in the…
In the Emergent scenario, the Universe should evolve from a non-singular state replacing the typical singularity of General Relativity, for any initial condition. For the scalar field model in [1] we show that only a set of measure zero of…
In the standard cosmological model, the Universe consists mainly of two invisible substances: vacuum energy with constant mass-density rho_v=\Lambda/(8pi G) (where Lambda is a `cosmological constant' originally proposed by Einstein and G is…
Voids are dominant features of the cosmic web. We revisit the cosmological information content of voids and connect void properties with the parameters of the background universe. We combine analytical results with a suite of large n-body…