Related papers: Scaling Relations for self-Similar Structures and …
Cosmic structures at large scales represent the earliest and most extended form of matter condensation. In this lecture we review the application of the methods and concepts of modern statistical physics to these structures. This leads to a…
We examine the general issue of whether a scale dependent cosmological constant can be consistent with general covariance, a problem that arises naturally in the treatment of quantum gravitation where coupling constants generally run as a…
Physical constants and cosmological parameters could vary with position. On the largest scales such variations would manifest themselves as gradients across our Hubble volume, leading to dipole-modulation of the cosmic microwave…
Solar seismology has allowed precision measurements of both the static and dynamic structure of our local star, the Sun. In the near future, seismology of solar-like stars of different ages and masses, necessarily restricted by angular…
By appropriate scaling of coupling constants a one-parameter family of ensembles of two-dimensional geometries is obtained, which interpolates between the ensembles of (generalized) causal dynamical triangulations and ordinary dynamical…
We argue that standard tools of holography can be used to describe fully non-perturbative microscopic models of cosmology in which a period of accelerated expansion may result from the positive potential energy of time-dependent scalar…
There is a deep cosmological mystery: although dependent on very different underlying physics, the timescales of structure formation, of galaxy cooling (both radiatively and against the CMB), and of vacuum domination do not differ by many…
We present a rich class of exact solutions which contains radiation-dominated and matter-dominated models for the early and late universe. They include a variable cosmological ``constant'' which is derived from a higher dimension and…
We briefly review the various contexts within which one might address the issue of ``why'' the dimensionless constants of Nature have the particular values that they are observed to have. Both the general historical trend, in physics, of…
The constraints on the models for the structure formation arising from various cosmological observations at different length scales are reviewed. The status of different models for structure formation is examined critically in the light of…
General relativity does not allow one to specify the topology of space, leaving the possibility that space is multi-- rather than simply--connected. We review the main mathematical properties of multi--connected spaces, and the different…
A numerical coincidence relating the values of the cosmological, gravitational and electromagnetic fine structure constants is presented and discussed in relation to the apparent anthropic fine-tuning of these three fundamental constants of…
An additional variation of the Einstein-Hilbert action with respect to the Planck mass provides a constraint on the average Ricci scalar that prevents vacuum energy from gravitating. Consideration of the evolution of the inhomogeneous…
The value of the cosmological constant is one of the major puzzles of modern cosmology: it is tiny but nonzero. Sorkin predicted, from the Causet approach to quantum gravity, that the cosmological constant has quantum fluctuations. The…
The observed value of the cosmological constant poses large theoretical problems. We find that topology of the Universe provides a natural source for it. Restricting dynamically an Einstein-Cartan gravity to General Relativity in our…
The self-gravitating systems are formed by particles interacting through gravity. They describe structure formation in the universe. As a consequence of the long range interaction of gravity, they are inhomogeneous even at thermal…
In this paper we consider the implications of a cosmological constant for the evolution of the universe, under a set of assumptions motivated by the holographic and horizon complementarity principles. We discuss the ``causal patch"…
I show that the de Sitter Equilibrium cosmology generically predicts observable levels of curvature in the Universe today. The predicted value of the curvature depends only on the ratio of the density of non-relativistic matter to energy…
We explore the possibility of a consistent cosmology based on the gauge-fixing independent running of the gravitational and cosmological constants ($G$ and $\Lambda$) in the framework of effective quantum gravity. In particular, their…
A fundamental element of scale-dependent gravity is the scale-setting procedure. We present a new covariant expression to set the scale that arises when examining the field equations. Considering the renormalization group equations and…