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After a short history of the $\Lambda$-term it is explained why the (effective) cosmological constant is expected to obtain contributions from short-distance physics, corresponding to an energy at least as large as the Fermi scale. The…
Recent cosmological observations suggest that nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and has negative pressure. Several conceptual issues related to the modeling of this component (`dark energy'), which…
Distance measurements to Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at cosmological distances indicate that the Universe is accelerating and that a large fraction of the critical energy density exists in a component with negative pressure. Various…
The energy density of the vacuum, Lambda, is at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it. Approaches to this problem are tightly constrained by data ranging from elementary observations to precision…
The theoretical vacuum energy density estimated on the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics and very general quantum assumptions is 59 to 123 orders of magnitude larger than the measured vacuum energy density for the observable…
By studying the present cosmological data, particularly on CMB, SNeIA and LSS, we find that the future fate of the universe, for simple linear models of the dark energy equation-of-state, can vary between the extremes of (I) a divergence of…
In the contemporary Cosmology, dark energy is modeled as a perfect fluid, having a very simple equation of state: pressure is proportional to dark energy density. As an alternative, I propose a more complex equation of state, with pressure…
Cosmological distances are fundamental observables in cosmology. The luminosity ($D_L$), angular diameter ($D_A$) and gravitational wave ($D_{\rm GW}$) distances are all trivially related in General Relativity assuming no significant…
Using the focusing equation, the equation for the cosmological angular diameter distance is derived, based on the ideas of Academician Ya.B. Zel'dovich, namely, that the distribution of matter at small angles is not homogeneous, and the…
The cosmological constant presents one of the most fascinating and confounding problems in physics. A straightforward, seemingly robust prediction of quantum mechanics and general relativity is that the vacuum energy gravitates. Therefore,…
Knowing the distance of an astrophysical object is key to understanding it. However, at present, comparisons of theory and observations are hampered by precision (or lack thereof) in distance measurements or estimates. Putting the many…
The Friedmann equation is derived for a Newtonian universe. Changing mass density to energy density gives exactly the Friedmann equation of general relativity. Accounting for work done by pressure then yields the two Einstein equations that…
A simple description of the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) problem for non-experts is presented. Basic features of cosmology with non-zero vacuum energy are discussed. The astronomical data which indicate that the universe is filled…
The discovery ten years ago that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating put in place the last major building block of the present cosmological model, in which the Universe is composed of 4% baryons, 20% dark matter, and 76% dark…
The current expansion of the Universe has been observed to be accelerating, and the widely accepted spatially-flat concordance model of general relativistic cosmology attributes this phenomenon to a constant dark energy, a cosmological…
We review the cosmological constraints put by the current CMB experiment including the recent ARCHEOPS data, in the framework of Lambda-CDM and quintessence paradigm. We show that well chosen combinations of constraints from different…
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…
The Universe is not completely homogeneous. Even if it is sufficiently so on large scales, it is very inhomogeneous at small scales, and this has an effect on light propagation, so that the distance as a function of redshift, which in many…
Several cosmological measurements have attained significant levels of maturity and accuracy over the last decade. Continuing this trend, future observations promise measurements of the statistics of the cosmic mass distribution at an…
The interpretation of cosmological observations relies on a notion of an average Universe, which is usually considered as the homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model. However, inhomogeneities may…