Related papers: Causal structures in cosmology
We argue that in the presence of instanton-like singularities, the existence of cosmological horizons can become frame-dependent, ie. a horizon which appears in Einstein frame may not appear in string frame. We speculate on the relation…
The apparent accelerating expansion of the Universe is forcing us to examine the foundational aspects of the standard model of cosmology -- in particular, the fact that dark energy is a direct consequence of the homogeneity assumption. We…
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…
Several problems in cosmology and astrophysics are described in which critical phenomena of various types may play a role. These include the organization of the disks of spiral galaxies, various aspects of the problem of structure formation…
Experimental evidene of the last decades has made the status of "collapses of the wave function" even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
Loop quantum cosmology is a conflicted field in which exuberant claims of observability coexist with serious objections against the conceptual and physical viability of its current formulations. This contribution presents a non-technical…
We assess how physically realistic the ''simulation hypothesis'' for this Universe is, based on physical constraints arising from the link between information and energy, and on known astrophysical constraints. We investigate three cases:…
Variability in gravitationally lensed quasars can be due to intrinsic fluctuations of the quasar or due to ``microlensing'' by compact objects along the line of sight. If disentangled from each other, microlens-induced variability can be…
Classical black holes and event horizons are highly non-local objects, defined in relation to the causal past of future null infinity. Alternative, quasilocal characterizations of black holes are often used in mathematical, quantum, and…
We assess the effects of a collision between two vacuum bubbles in the thin-wall limit. After describing the outcome of a generic collision possessing the expected hyperbolic symmetry, we focus on collisions experienced by a bubble…
We show that, for general static or axisymmetric stationary spacetimes, a cosmological Killing horizon exists only if $R_{ab}n^{a}n^{b}< 0$ for a hypersurface orthogonal timelike $n^{a}$, at least over some portion of the region of interest…
This work is devoted to investigate some consequences of black holes physics beyond the domain of general relativity, mainly in effective extra dimensional models. The investigation is carried along three gravitational effects, namely the…
I explain the difficulty of making various concepts of and relating to probability precise, rigorous and physically significant when attempting to apply them in reasoning about objects (e.g., spacetimes) living in infinite-dimensional…
There is a general agreement that galaxy structures exhibit fractal properties, at least up to some small scale. However the presence of an eventual crossover towards homogenization, as well as the exact value of the fractal dimension, are…
We use standard general relativity to illustrate and clarify several common misconceptions about the expansion of the Universe. To show the abundance of these misconceptions we cite numerous misleading, or easily misinterpreted, statements…
The concordance model of cosmology predicts a universe which finishes in a finite amount of conformal time at a future conformal boundary. We show that for particular cases we study, the background variables and perturbations may be…
We examine the existence of an apparent horizon in the collapse of an isolated dust cloud using expansion functions. Our results indicate that in the region of spacetime far away from the gravitational singularity, the considered system has…
An unresolved question in inflationary cosmology is the assignment of probabilities to different types of events that can occur in the eternally inflating multiverse. We explore the possibility that the resolution of this "measure problem"…
Motivated by the old trans-Planckian (TP) problem of inflationary cosmology, it has been conjectured that any consistent effective field theory should keep TP modes `hidden' behind the Hubble horizon, so as to prevent them from turning…