Related papers: Dark matter, dark energy and modern cosmology: the…
A huge amount of good quality data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision Cosmology. Despite…
A six parameter cosmological model, involving a vacuum energy density that is extremely tiny compared to fundamental particle physics scales, describes a large body of increasingly accurate astronomical data. In a first part of this brief…
While the LCDM framework has been incredibly successful for modern cosmology, it requires the admission of two mysterious substances as a part of the paradigm, dark energy and dark matter. Although this framework adequately explains most of…
In the standard model of cosmology, the present evolution of the Universe is determined by the presence of two components of unknown nature. One of them is referenced as ``dark matter'' to justify the fact that it behaves cosmologically…
Progress in observational cosmology over the past five years has established that the Universe is dominated dynamically by dark matter and dark energy. Both these new and apparently independent forms of matter-energy have properties that…
Observational evidence indicating that the expansion of the universe is accelerating has surprised cosmologists in recent years. Cosmological models have sought to explain this acceleration by incorporating `dark energy', of which the…
Recent cosmological and astrophysical observations point out that the Universe is in accelerating expansion and filled up with non-luminous matter. In order to explain the observed large scale structures and this accelerating behavior one…
The high-quality cosmological data, which became available in the last decade, have thrusted upon us a rather preposterous composition for the universe which poses one of the greatest challenges theoretical physics has ever faced: the…
Dark energy appears to be the dominant component of the physical Universe, yet there is no persuasive theoretical explanation for its existence or magnitude. The acceleration of the Universe is, along with dark matter, the observed…
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…
This lecture course covers cosmology from the particle physicist perspective. Therefore, the emphasis will be on the evidence for the new physics in cosmological and astrophysical data together with minimal theoretical frameworks needed to…
Two exotic elements have been introduced into the standard cosmological model: non-baryonic dark matter and dark energy. The success in converting a hypothesis into a solid theory depends strongly on whether we are able to solve the…
Cosmological arguments proving that the universe is dominated by invisible non-baryonic matter are reviewed. Possible physical candidates for dark matter particles are discussed. A particular attention is paid to non-compensated remnants of…
Although dark matter is a central element of modern cosmology, the history of how it became accepted as part of the dominant paradigm is often ignored or condensed into a brief anecdotical account focused around the work of a few pioneering…
The discovery ten years ago that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating put in place the present cosmological model, in which the Universe is composed of 4% baryons, 20% dark matter, and 76% dark energy. Yet the underlying cause of…
The discovery of the accelerating universe in the late 1990s was a watershed moment in modern cosmology, as it indicated the presence of a fundamentally new, dominant contribution to the energy budget of the universe. Evidence for dark…
It would be hard to find a cosmologist today who does not believe that the vast bulk of the Universe (ninety-five percent or more) is hidden from our eyes. We review the evidence for this remarkable consensus, and for the latest proposal,…
I briefly review our current understanding of dark matter and dark energy. The first part of this paper focusses on issues pertaining to dark matter including observational evidence for its existence, current constraints and the `abundance…
The most important problem in fundamental physics is the description of the contents of the Universe. Today, we know that 95% thereof is totally unknown. Two thirds of that amount is the mysterious Dark Energy described in an interesting…
In this article, we review a series of recent theoretical results regarding a conventional approach to the dark energy (DE) concept. This approach is distinguished among others for its simplicity and its physical relevance. By compromising…