Related papers: Observational Probes of Cosmic Acceleration
Type Ia supernovae are a powerful cosmological probe, that gave the first strong evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Here we provide an overview of how supernovae can go further to reveal information about what is…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly from the accelerated expansion of the Universe, and indirectly, from measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. Dark energy contributes about 2/3 of the…
The accelerating expansion of the universe presents an exciting, fundamental challenge to the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. I highlight some of the outstanding challenges in both developing theoretical models and…
Over the last 20 years, supernovae have become a key tool to constrain the expansion history of the Universe through the construction of Hubble diagrams, using luminosity distances to supernovae belonging to the "Ia" subtype. This technique…
In the late 1990s, observations of type Ia supernovae led to the astounding discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. The explanation of this anomalous acceleration has been one of the great problems in physics since…
This contribution intends to give a pedagogical introduction to the topic of dark energy (the mysterious agent supposed to drive the observed late time acceleration of the Universe) and to various observational tests which require only…
The discovery of dark energy by the first generation of high-redshift supernova surveys has generated enormous interest beyond cosmology and has dramatic implications for fundamental physics. Distance measurements using supernova explosions…
The coming decade will be an exciting period for dark energy research, during which astronomers will address the question of what drives the accelerated cosmic expansion as first revealed by type Ia supernova (SN) distances, and confirmed…
Any theory invoked to explain cosmic acceleration predicts consistency relations between the expansion history, structure growth, and all related observables. Currently there exist high-quality measurements of the expansion history from…
We measure the current expansion rate of the Universe, Hubble's constant $H_0$, by calibrating the absolute magnitudes of supernovae to distances measured by Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. This `inverse distance ladder' technique provides an…
Cosmological distances inferred from supernova Ia observations constitute the most direct and solid evidence for the recently detected accelerated expansion of the universe. In this contribution, we show some inconsistencies between two of…
The observed late-time acceleration of the cosmic expansion constitutes a fundamental problem in modern theoretical physics and cosmology. In an attempt to weight the validity of a large number of dark energy models, I use the recent…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly from the accelerated expansion of the Universe, and indirectly, from measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. Dark energy contributes about 2/3 of the…
Recently, some divergent conclusions about cosmic acceleration were obtained using type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), with opposite assumptions on the intrinsic luminosity evolution. In this paper, we use strong gravitational lensing systems to…
It has been only ~15 years since the discovery of dark energy (although some may argue there were strong indications even earlier). In the short time since measurements of type Ia supernovae indicated an accelerating universe, many other…
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…
A moderate investment of observing time with the International X-ray Observatory to study high-redshift galaxy clusters detected in future large-scale surveys, will provide cosmological measurements of fundamental importance. IXO…
Deriving the expansion history of the Universe is a major goal of modern cosmology. To date, the most accurate measurements have been obtained with Type Ia Supernovae and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, providing evidence for the existence of…
Mapping the expansion of the universe gives clues to the underlying physics causing the recently discovered acceleration of the expansion, and enables discrimination among cosmological models. We examine the utility of measuring the rate of…
The expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating, and the mysterious anti-gravity agent of this acceleration has been called ``dark energy''. To measure the dynamics of dark energy, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) can be used.…