Related papers: Crunches, Hats, and a Conjecture
Astronomical observations from small galaxies to the largest scales in the universe can be consistently explained by the simple idea of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is however still unknown. Empirically it cannot be any of the…
This thesis explores the thermodynamics of the cosmological horizon, aiming to make progress towards a better understanding of the microscopic nature of its entropy. We utilise the constrained nature of low-dimensional gravity to do so and…
Several models based on General Relativity and Modified Gravity aim to reproduce the observed universe with precision comparable to the flat-$\Lambda$CDM cosmological model. In this study, we investigate the consistency of some of these…
We study regular Schwarzschild black holes in General Relativity as an alternative to the singular counterpart. We analyze two types of solutions which are completely parameterised by the ADM mass alone. We find that both families of…
The aim of this review article is to give a comprehensive description of the scaling properties detected for the distribution of cosmic structures. Due to the great variety of statistical methods to describe the large-scale structure of the…
The results of joint analyses of available cosmological data have motivated an important debate about a possible detection of a non-zero spatial curvature. If confirmed, such a result would imply a change in our present understanding of…
In this paper a de Sitter Space version of Black Hole Complementarity is formulated which states that an observer in de Sitter Space describes the surrounding space as a sealed finite temperature cavity bounded by a horizon which allows no…
Higher-dimensional braneworld models which contain both bulk and brane curvature terms in the action admit cosmological singularities of rather unusual form and nature. These `quiescent' singularities, which can occur both during the…
One of the most interesting and current phenomenological extensions of General Relativity is the so-called $f (R)$ class of theories; a natural generalization of this includes an explicit non-minimal coupling between matter and curvature.…
In some cosmological theories with varying constants there are anthropic reasons why the expansion of the universe must not be too {\it close} to flatness or the cosmological constant too close to zero. Using exact theories which…
Precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background by WMAP are believed to have established a flat $\Lambda$-dominated universe, seeded by nearly scale-invariant adiabatic primordial fluctuations. However by relaxing the hypothesis…
We initiate a study of cosmology within the framework of Maldacena's AdS/CFT correspondence. We present a comprehensive analysis of the classical motion of a charged domain wall that separates an external Reissner-Nordstrom region of…
Just comparing with the scenario that the (3+1)-dimensional "real world" of the Calabi-Yau compactification has a tremendous landscape, we conjecture that a (4+1)-dimensional holographic theory may also hold a landscape of its vacua. Unlike…
The motion of a test Dq-brane in a Dp-brane background is studied. The induced metric on the test brane is then interpreted as the cosmology of the test brane universe. One is then able to resolve the resulting cosmological singularities.…
A new class of FLRW cosmological models with time-evolving fundamental parameters should emerge naturally from a description of the expansion of the universe based on the first principles of quantum field theory and string theory. Within…
I review recent results in three topics of the M-world: (i) Scales. (ii) New dark matter candidates. (iii) Cosmological solutions from p-branes. The three topics are discussed in the framework of Ho\v{r}ava-Witten compactifications. Part…
We describe a class of holographic models that may describe the physics of certain four-dimensional big-bang / big-crunch cosmologies. The construction involves a pair of 3D Euclidean holographic CFTs each on a homogeneous and isotropic…
Observational constraints guide one forcefully to examine models in which the matter density is substantially less than critical density. Particularly noteworthy are those which are consistent with inflation. For these models, microwave…
The general theory of matching conditions is developed for gravitational theories in two spacetime dimensions. Models inspired from general relativity and from string theory are considered. These conditions are used to study collapsing dust…
The limits imposed by the classical cosmological tests on closed and open FRW universes driven by adiabatic matter creation are investigated. Exact expressions for the lookback time, age of the universe, luminosity distance, angular…