Related papers: Hot big bang or slow freeze?
With the beginning of the XXIst century, a physical model of our Universe, usually called the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM), is reaching an important level of consolidation, based on accurate astrophysical data and also on theoretical…
We study a class of non-local, action-based, and purely gravitational models. These models seek to describe a cosmology in which inflation is driven by a large, bare cosmological constant that is screened by the self-gravitation between the…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…
A phenomenological model of dark energy that tracks the baryonic and cold dark matter at early times but resembles a cosmological constant at late times is explored. In the transition between these two regimes, the dark energy density drops…
In a systematic study, we use an equivalent pair of improved numerical relativity codes based on a tetrad-formulation of the classical Einstein-scalar field equations to examine whether slow contraction or inflation (or both) can resolve…
This essay is a nontechnical primer for a broader audience, in which I paint a broad-brush picture of modern cosmology. I begin by reviewing the evidence for the big bang, including the expansion of our Universe, the cosmic microwave…
We present gravitation as a theory in which the coordinates are distances and velocities between galaxies. We show that there are three possibilities for the Universe to expand: decelerating, constant and accelerating, and it is shown that…
Detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate the large-scale homogeneity of the universe. On very small scales, we observe however inhomogeneities such as galaxies, stars, planets and ourselves. In the context of hot…
A recent cosmological model is recapitulated which deduces the correct mass, radius and age of the universe as also the Hubble constant and other well known apparently coincidental relations. It also predicts an ever expanding accelerating…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
In the standard hot big bang model, the expansion of the early universe is given by the Friedmann equation with an energy density dominated by relativistic particles. Since in a variety of models this equation is altered, we introduce…
The prevailing cosmological model with the lambda-term, in which the space is flat, is studied (section 1). The corresponding age of the Universe (t0) is calculated (assuming a Hubble constant consistent with the measurements of the Hubble…
We explore a cyclic universe due to phantom and quintessence fields. We find that, in every cycle of the evolution of the universe, the phantom dominates the cosmic early history and quintessence dominates the cosmic far future. In this…
We propose a time-varying cosmological constant with a fixed equation of state, which evolves mainly through its interaction with the background during most of the long history of the universe. However, such interaction does not exist in…
The question of possible physics before Big Bang (or after Big Crunch) is addressed via a schematic non-covariant simulation of the loss of observability of the Universe. Our model is drastically simplified by the reduction of its degrees…
We study a symmetry, schematically Energy -> - Energy, which suppresses matter contributions to the cosmological constant. The requisite negative energy fluctuations are identified with a "ghost" copy of the Standard Model. Gravity…
The physical nature of the presently dominating enigmatic dark energy in the expanding universe is demonstrated to be explainable as an excess of the kinetic energy with respect to its potential energy. According to traditional Friedman…
The network of cosmological tests is tight enough now to show that the relativistic Big Bang cosmology is a good approximation to what happened as the universe expanded and cooled through light element production and evolved to the present.…
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…