Related papers: A Taste of Cosmology
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
This review on dark energy is intended for a wider audience, beginners as well as experts. It contains important notes on various aspects of dark energy and its alternatives. The section on Newtonian cosmology followed by heuristic…
The first version of these lecture notes is based on the hand-written notes I prepared for the cosmology course taught to graduate students of PPGFis and PPGCosmo at the Federal University of Esp\'irito Santo (UFES), starting in 2014. The…
Previous work developed a space-time metric with two cosmological scales; one that conveniently describes the classical evolution of the dynamics, and the other describing a scale associated with macroscopic quantum aspects like vacuum…
These lecture notes comprise an informal but pedagogical introduction to the well established physics and phenomenology of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) between big bang nucleosynthesis and recombination. The dominant properties of…
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…
These notes present a brief introduction to `naturalness' problems in cosmology, and to the Cosmological Constant Problem in particular. The main focus is the `old' cosmological constant problem, though the more recent variants are also…
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…
One of the main challenges in cosmology is to quantify how small density fluctuations at the recombination epoch z around 1000 evolved into the galaxies and the large-scale structure we observe in the universe today. This thesis discusses…
The redshift dependence of the cosmic microwave background temperature, $T(z)=T_0(1+z)$, is a key prediction of standard cosmology, but this relation is violated in many extensions thereof. Current astrophysical facilities can probe it in…
Since the IAU XXIV meeting in 2000, the CMB anisotropy has matured from being one of a number of cosmological probes to forming the bedrock foundation for what is now the standard model of cosmology. The large advances over the past three…
The cosmic microwave background is now fulfilling its promise of determining the basic cosmological parameters describing our Universe. Future study of the microwave background will mostly be directed towards two basic questions: a complete…
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,…
The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we…
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
We are now beginning to learn detailed information about cosmological parameters from the shapes of the matter and radiation power spectra, together with their relative normalization. As more high quality data are gathered from galaxy…
We aim to present a tutorial on the detection, parameter estimation and statistical analysis of compact sources (far galaxies, galaxy clusters and Galactic dense emission regions) in cosmic microwave background observations. The topic is of…
These notes on modern cosmology were made with high school teachers and students in mind. Taking into account the lack of availability of time and classes that many teachers have nowadays in Brazil, often caused by having to comply with…
The discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in 1964 by Penzias and Wilson led to the establishment of the hot big-bang cosmological model some ten years later. Discoveries made in 1998 may ultimately have as profound an effect on…
Although dark matter is a central element of modern cosmology, the history of how it became accepted as part of the dominant paradigm is often ignored or condensed into a brief anecdotical account focused around the work of a few pioneering…