Related papers: Some epistemic questions of cosmology
Have we converged on the definitive model of cosmology? I present a critical assessment of the current paradigms for the evolution of large-scale structure.
The notion that nature is subject to laws is exciting from many different viewpoints. This paper is based on the context of modern cosmology and presents a more philosophical discussion. It will list the significant interdisciplinary…
This review presents an introduction to Quantum Cosmology, including the mathematical methods essential to the canonical approach, some of the existing conceptual problems and the connection of the models to possible observables.
Research in cosmology traditionally divided into two separate lines. On the one hand was the search for initial conditions: the cosmological parameters H, Omega, Omega_b, and Lambda, and the power spectrum P(k). On the other hand was the…
An emerging theme in modern astrophysics is the connection between astronomical observations and the underlying physical phenomena that drive our cosmos. Both the mechanisms responsible for the observed astrophysical phenomena and the tools…
I briefly discuss the challenges presented by attempting to modify general relativity to obtain an explanation for the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. Foremost among these are the questions of theoretical consistency - the…
This is a written version of a series of lectures aimed at undergraduate students in astrophysics/particle theory/particle experiment. We summarize the important progress made in recent years towards understanding high energy astrophysical…
Problems with uniform probabilities on an infinite support show up in contemporary cosmology. This paper focuses on the context of inflation theory, where it complicates the assignment of a probability measure over pocket universes. The…
One of the main challenges in cosmology is to quantify how small density fluctuations at the recombination epoch z around 1000 evolved into the galaxies and the large-scale structure we observe in the universe today. This thesis discusses…
These four lectures cover four topics in modern cosmology: the cosmological constant, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, and cosmology as a probe of physics at the Planck scale. The underlying theme is that cosmology gives us a…
In this paper we give a pedagogical review of the recent observational results in cosmology from the study of type Ia supernovae and anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. By providing consistent constrainst on the cosmological…
Based on the cosmological principle only, the method of describing the evolution of the Universe, called cosmography, is in fact a kinematics of cosmological expansion. The effectiveness of cosmography lies in the fact that it allows, based…
It has long been a primary objective of cosmology to understand the apparent isotropy in our universe and to provide a mathematical formulation for its evolution. A school of thought for its explanation is quiescent cosmology, which already…
We review the status of bouncing cosmologies as alternatives to cosmological inflation for providing a description of the very early universe, and a source for the cosmological perturbations which are observed today. We focus on the…
The standard big bang cosmological model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions are summarized. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with…
The current debate about a possible change of paradigm from a single universe to a multiverse scenario could have deep implications on our view of cosmology and of science in general. These implications therefore deserve to be analyzed from…
This paper is intended to offer a pedagogical treatment of cosmological modeling and inflationary cosmology. In recent years, inflation has become accepted as a standard scenario making predictions that are testable by observations of the…
Over the last decades, observations with increasing quality have revolutionized our understanding of the general properties of the Universe. Questions posed for millenia by mankind about the origin, evolution and structure of the cosmos…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
We have found that proposals addressing the old cosmological constant problem come in various categories. The aim of this paper is to identify as many different, credible mechanisms as possible and to provide them with a code for future…