Related papers: On Under-determination in cosmology
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…
Cosmography, as an integral branch of cosmology, strives to characterize the Universe without relying on pre-determined cosmological models. This model-independent approach utilizes Taylor series expansions around the current epoch,…
We critically review the role of cosmological moduli in determining the post-inflationary history of the universe. Moduli are ubiquitous in string and M-theory constructions of beyond the Standard Model physics, where they parametrize the…
We consider the properties of an ensemble of universes as function of size, where size is defined in terms of the asymptotic value of the Hubble constant (or, equivalently, the value of the cosmological constant). We assume that standard…
The Cosmic Defect theory has been confronted with four observational constraints: primordial nuclear species abundances emerging from the big bang nucleosynthesis; large scale structure formation in the universe; cosmic microwave background…
This is a very comprehensible review of some key issues in Modern Cosmology. Simple mathematical examples and analogies are always used, whenever available. The starting point is the well know Big Bang Cosmology (BBC). We deal with the…
In the early seventies, Alan Sandage defined cosmology as the search for two numbers: Hubble parameter ${{H}_{0}}$ and deceleration parameter ${{q}_{0}}$. The first of the two basic cosmological parameters (the Hubble parameter) describes…
The $\rm\Lambda$CDM cosmological model is remarkable: with just 6 parameters it describes the evolution of the Universe from a very early time when all structures were quantum fluctuations on subatomic scales to the present, and it is…
Last couple of decades have been the golden age for cosmology. High quality data confirmed the broad paradigm of standard cosmology but have thrusted upon us a preposterous composition for the universe which defies any simple explanation,…
We describe how cosmology has converged towards a beautiful model of the Universe: the Big Bang Universe. We praise this model, but show there is a dark side to it. This dark side is usually called ``the cosmological problems'': a set of…
A review of the principles of observational testing of cosmological theories is given with a special emphasis on the distinction between observational facts and theoretical hypotheses. A classification of modern cosmological theories and…
In the early seventies, Alan Sandage defined cosmology as the search for two numbers: Hubble parameter ${{H}_{0}}$ and deceleration parameter ${{q}_{0}}$. The first of the two basic cosmological parameters (the Hubble parameter) describes…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
Observational Cosmology has indeed made very rapid progress in the past decade. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation Measurements of CMB anisotropy and,…
The cosmological standard model at present is widely accepted as containing mainly things we do not understand. In particular the appearance of a Cosmological Constant, or dark energy, is puzzling. This was first inferred from the Hubble…
This article is the written version of the closing talk presented at the conference `A Century of Cosmology' held at San Servolo, Italy, in August 2007. I focus on the prospects of constraining fundamental physics from cosmological…
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
I discuss some central issues in particle physics which are potentially relevant to cosmology. I first briefly review the present (glorious) experimental status of the Standard Model, emphasizing that it provides a firm foundation both for…
We investigate the cosmological behavior in a universe governed by time asymmetric extensions of general relativity, which is a novel modified gravity based on the addition of new, time-asymmetric, terms on the Hamiltonian framework, in a…