Related papers: Dark Energy vs. Modified Gravity
The high-quality cosmological data, which became available in the last decade, have thrusted upon us a rather preposterous composition for the universe which poses one of the greatest challenges theoretical physics has ever faced: the…
The standard model of cosmology suggests the existence of two components, "dark matter" and "dark energy", which determine the fate of the Universe. Their nature is still under investigation, and no direct proof of their existences has…
Explaining the well established observation that the expansion rate of the universe is apparently accelerating is one of the defining scientific problems of our age. Within the standard model of cosmology, the repulsive 'dark energy'…
To explain the cosmic speed up, brought to light by the recent SNIa and CMB observations, we propose the following: a) In a spacetime endowed with a FRW metric, we choose an empirical scale factor that best explains the observations. b) We…
I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the…
The fundamental nature of Dark Matter (DM) has not been established. Indeed, beyond its gravitational effects, DM remains undetected by present experiments. In this situation, it is reasonable to wonder if other alternatives can effectively…
The acceleration of the expansion of the universe, ascribed to a dark energy, is one of the most intriguing discoveries in science. In addition to precise, systematics controlled data, clear, robust interpretation of the observations is…
The quantity and quality of cosmic structure observations have greatly accelerated in recent years. Further leaps forward will be facilitated by imminent projects, which will enable us to map the evolution of dark and baryonic matter…
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 modified gravity, which eliminates the need for dark energy and which seems to be stable, is considered. The terms with positive powers of the curvature support the inflationary epoch while the terms with negative powers of the…
We review various modified gravities considered as gravitational alternative for dark energy. Specifically, we consider the versions of $f(R)$, $f(G)$ or $f(R,G)$ gravity, model with non-linear gravitational coupling or string-inspired…
A mildly inhomogeneous universe with a cosmological constant may look like it contains evolving dark energy. We show that could be the case by modelling the inhomogeneities and their effects in three different ways: as clumped matter…
A successor to the standard hot big-bang cosmology is emerging. It greatly extends the highly successful hot big-bang model. A key element of the New Standard Cosmology is dark energy, the causative agent for accelerated expansion. Dark…
The expansion of the universe has been accepted by scientists for more than a century. However, since the 1990s, observations have suggested that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Although the source of this acceleration is…
We review the several models of the dark energy, which may generate the accelerated expansion of the present universe. We also discuss the the Big Rip singularity, which may occur when the equation of the state parameter w is less than -1.…
We discuss a model of the universe where dark energy is replaced by electrically-charged extremely-massive dark matter. The cosmological constant has a value of the same order as the mean matter density, consistent with observations, and is…
The traditional "explanation" for the observed acceleration of the universe is the existence of a positive cosmological constant. However, this can hardly be a truly convincing explanation, as an expanding universe is not expected to have a…
Modified dark matter (MDM) is a phenomenological model of dark matter, inspired by gravitational thermodynamics. For an accelerating Universe with positive cosmological constant ($\Lambda$), such phenomenological considerations lead to the…
The fact that the energy densities of dark energy and matter are similar currently, known as the coincidence problem, is one of the main unsolved problems of cosmology. We present here a model in which a spatial curvature of the universe…
It is commonly believed that our Universe has experienced two different stages of accelerated expansion. The early stage is known as inflation and the current acceleration is driven by dark energy. Observing inflation and dark energy…