Related papers: Digging down the past
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
Loop quantum cosmology is an application of recent developments for a non-perturbative and background independent quantization of gravity to a cosmological setting. Characteristic properties of the quantization such as discreteness of…
Two fundamental laws are needed for prediction in the universe: (1) a basic dynamical law and (2) a law for the cosmological initial condition. Quantum cosmology is the area of basic research concerned with the search for a theory of the…
These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure…
What are the important unanswered questions in cosmology? The choice as to which are the most important is somewhat personal. In the view of the author, the ten topics chosen here for discussion must be included among the most fundamental.…
After a survey of the present state of cosmological theory and observations, this article discusses a series of major themes underlying the relation of philosophy to cosmology. These are: A: The uniqueness of the universe; B: The large…
Cosmological surveys aim at answering fundamental questions about our Universe, including the nature of dark matter or the reason of unexpected accelerated expansion of the Universe. In order to answer these questions, two important…
The standard big bang cosmological model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions are summarized. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with…
The main task for cosmology today is the completion of the program of cosmological tests that commenced in the 1930s. I offer comments on the state of the program and the issues to be addressed to establish a convincing large-scale picture…
Cosmology, as a science, started at the beginning of the last century with the advent of the Einstein cosmological equations. Based on these equations, the present main stream cosmological model is the well known big-bang, this name…
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
Questions such as whether we live in a spatially finite universe, and what its shape and size may be, are among the fundamental open problems that high precision modern cosmology needs to resolve. These questions go beyond the scope of…
From the first observations made by Slipher, our understanding and interpretation of the cosmological redshift was evolving until reaching the current consensus, through the expanding universe and the emergence of modern physical cosmology…
We review the broad status of cosmology and discuss a model of fluctuational cosmology in which the universe is created in a phase transition like phenomenon mimicking inflation, and which further consistently explains latest observations…
Consider the scenario, in which human civilization undergoes periodic eras of progression and regression, and consequently, changes in cosmological knowledge are cyclic. There exist solutions of general theory of relativity, such as the…
The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of astrophysics. Within the broad context of hierachical structure formation, we have only a crude picture of how galaxies like our own came into existence. A…
Abridged: The golden age of astrophysics is upon us with both grand discoveries (extra-solar planets, dark matter, dark energy) and precision cosmology. Fundamental understanding of the working of stars and galaxies is within reach, thanks…
We study early universe cosmologies derived from a scalar-tensor action containing cosmological constant terms and massless fields. The governing equations can be written as a dynamical system which contains no past or future asymptotic…
We describe what cosmology looks like in the context of the geometric theory of gravity (GSG) based on a single scalar field. There are two distinct classes of cosmological solutions. An interesting feature is the possibility of having a…
Genesis Cosmology is the combination of Genesis and a cosmology model for the description of the first three days in Genesis. The first day involves the emergence of the separation of light and darkness from the formless, empty, and dark…