Related papers: Three Tests of LambdaCDM
The current standard model of cosmology - the {\ensuremath{\Lambda}}CDM model - is appropriately named after its controversial foreign ingredients: a cosmological constant ({\ensuremath{\Lambda}}) that accounts for the recent accelerated…
The Cosmological Constant Lambda, a concept introduced by Einstein in 1917, has been with us ever since in different variants and incarnations, including the broader concept of Dark Energy. Current observations are consistent with a value…
After briefly reviewing the good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard CDM theory and problems with the MOND alternative, I summarize several of the main areas of possible disagreement between…
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…
Discoveries in the last few years have revolutionized our knowledge of the universe and our ideas of its ultimate fate. Measurements of the expansion of the universe show that it is not slowing down under normal gravity but accelerating due…
The past few years have seen several breakthroughs in particle astrophysics and cosmology. In several cases, new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. In this talk I summarize some of these…
Two recent findings necessitate a closer look at the existing standard models of Particle Physics and Cosmology. These are the discovery of Neutrino oscillation, and hence a non zero mass on the one hand and, on the other, observations of…
The relativistic LambdaCDM cosmological model has passed a demanding network of tests that convincingly demonstrate it is a useful approximation to what happened back to high redshift. But there are anomalies in its application to structure…
General Relativity and the $\Lambda$CDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the…
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…
A range of cosmological observations demonstrate an accelerated expansion of the Universe, and the most likely explanation of this phenomenon is a cosmological constant. Given the importance of understanding the underlying physics, it is…
Astrophysics and cosmology can be used to test the standard model of particle physics under conditions and over distance and time scales not accessible to laboratory experiments. Most of the astrophysical observations are in good agreement…
The fact that the LambdaCDM model fits the observations does not necessarily imply the physical existence of `dark energy'. Dropping the assumption that cold dark matter (CDM) is a perfect fluid opens the possibility to fit the data without…
Keeping in mind the current picture of an accelerating and flat Universe, some specific dynamical models of the cosmological term $\Lambda$ have been selected for investigating the nature of dark energy. Connecting the free parameters of…
Age consistency for the Universe today has been an important cosmological test. Even more powerful consistency tests at times as early as 10^{-32} sec lie ahead in the precision era of cosmology. I outline tests based upon cosmic microwave…
Using recent precision measurements of cosmological paramters, we re-examine whether these observations alone, independent of type Ia supernova surveys, are sufficient to imply the existence of dark energy. We find that best measurements of…
According to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, the accelerated expansion of the Universe will go on forever. Motivated by recent observational results, we explore the possibility of a finite phase of acceleration which asymptotically…
The (re)introduction of $\Lambda$ into cosmology has spurred debates that touch on central questions in philosophy of science, as well as the foundations of general relativity and particle physics. We provide a systematic assessment of the…
In the standard model of cosmology, the universe is described by a Robertson-Walker spacetime, while its matter/energy content is modeled by a perfect fluid with three components corresponding to matter/dust, radiation and a cosmological…
We carry out an analysis of the cosmological perturbations in general relativity for three different models which are good candidates to describe the current acceleration of the Universe. These three set-ups are described classically by…