Related papers: Curvature Constraints from the Causal Entropic Pri…
One of the fundamental challenges of quantum gravity is to understand how the microscopic degrees of freedom of the cosmological horizon shape the evolution of the Universe. One possible approach to this problem is based on the…
Here we deconstruct, and then in a reasoned way reconstruct, the concept of "entropy of a system," paying particular attention to where the randomness may be coming from. We start with the core concept of entropy as a COUNT associated with…
Following our identification of the probable interstellar origin of high-inclination Centaurs, Morbidelli et al. (2020) issued a rebuttal criticizing our methods and conclusions. Here, we show that the criticism is unfounded. Entropy's…
A set of scaling laws, based on the stochastic motions of the granular components of astronomical systems, is applied to a cosmological model with a positive cosmological constant. It follows that the mass of the dominant particle in the…
The conditions for validity of the Causal Entropy Bound (CEB) are verified in the context of non-singular cosmologies with classical sources. It is shown that they are the same conditions that were previously found to guarantee validity of…
We make the cosmological constant, {\Lambda}, into a field and restrict the variations of the action with respect to it by causality. This creates an additional Einstein constraint equation. It restricts the solutions of the standard…
We study two-field bouncing cosmologies in which primordial perturbations are created in either an ekpyrotic or a matter-dominated contraction phase. We use a non-singular ghost condensate bounce model to follow the perturbations through…
Quantum creation of Universes with compact spacelike sections that have curvature $k$ either closed, flat or open, i.e. $k=\pm1,0$ are studied. In the flat and open cases, the superpotential of the Wheeler De Witt equation is significantly…
We phenomenologically derive a cosmological model that includes both a cosmological constant term $\Lambda/3$ and a dissipative driving term $\beta (2 H^{2} + \dot{H})$ by applying both the first law of thermodynamics and an effective…
We constrain several models of the early Universe that predict a statistical anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky. We make use of WMAP9 maps deconvolved with beam asymmetries. As compared to previous releases of WMAP…
The old cosmological constant problem is to understand why the vacuum energy is so small; the new problem is to understand why it is comparable to the present mass density. Several approaches to these problems are reviewed. Quintessence…
Current constraints on spatial curvature show that it is dynamically negligible: $|\Omega_{\rm K}| \lesssim 5 \times 10^{-3}$ (95% CL). Neglecting it as a cosmological parameter would be premature however, as more stringent constraints on…
Cosmic structure on the largest scales preserves the pattern laid down by quantum fluctuations of gravity in the early universe on scales comparable to inflationary horizons. It is proposed here that fluctuations create physical…
A fundamental assumption in the standard model of cosmology is that the Universe is isotropic on large scales. Breaking this assumption leads to a set of solutions to Einstein's field equations, known as Bianchi cosmologies, only a subset…
Entropic causal inference is a framework for inferring the causal direction between two categorical variables from observational data. The central assumption is that the amount of unobserved randomness in the system is not too large. This…
It is demonstrated that entropy and its density play a significant role in solving the problem of the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant) of the Universe and hence the dark energy problem. Taking this in mind, two most popular…
In a previous paper we have introduced a new cosmological model that we called the logotropic model. The logotropic model is able to account, without free parameter, for the constant surface density of the dark matter halos, for their…
It can be argued that the ordinary description of the reversible quantum process between two one-to-one correlated measurement outcomes is incomplete because, by not specifying the direction of causality, it allows causal structures that…
Motivated by recent astrophysical observations of quasar absorption systems, we formulate a simple theory where the electron to proton mass ratio $\mu =m_{e}/m_{p}$ is allowed to vary in space-time. In such a minimal theory only the…
We show that, due to the nonlinear nature of gravity, fluctuations in spacetime curvature generate additional gravitational attraction. This fluctuation-induced extra attraction was overlooked in the conventional understanding of the…