Related papers: Cosmic transparency and acceleration
Distant supernovae can now be detected routinely. To date 34 supernovae at $z > 0.1$ have been discovered. Among them are 12 Type~Ia supernovae confirmed spectroscopically and suited to measure the cosmic deceleration when appropriately…
Departures of the energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from a perfect blackbody probe a fundamental property of the universe -- its thermal history. Current upper limits, dating back some 25 years, limit such spectral…
Observational data for type Ia supernovae, shows that the expansion of the universe is accelerated. This accelerated expansion can be described by a cosmological constant or by dark energy models like quintessence. An interesting question…
Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa) used as standardizable candles have been instrumental in the discovery of cosmic acceleration, usually attributed to some form of dark energy (DE). Recent studies have raised the issue of whether intrinsic SNeIa…
We determine the proper motion of the Solar system from the Pantheon sample of supernovae (SNe) of type Ia. The posterior distribution of the Solar system proper velocity, its direction and relevant cosmological parameters are obtained…
The conventional $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model supplemented by the inflation concept describes the Universe very well. However, there are still a few concerns: new Planck data impose constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential,…
A fundamental assumption inherent in the standard Lambda+CDM Hot Big Bang (HBB) model is that photons lose energy as they are redshifted due to the expansion of the universe. We show that for the Quasi-Static Universe (QSU) model, in which…
The dimming of Type Ia supernovae could be the result of Hubble-scale inhomogeneity in the matter and spatial curvature, rather than signaling the presence of a dark energy component. A key challenge for such models is to fit the detailed…
The cosmological vacuum decay scenario recently proposed by Wang and Meng \cite{wm} is rediscussed. From thermodynamic arguments it is found that the $\epsilon$ parameter quantifying the vacuum decay rate must be positive in the presence of…
The Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP) is designed to measure the luminosity distance for Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as a function of redshift, and to set observational constraints on the dark energy contribution to the total energy content…
The results from the Supernova Cosmology Project indicate a relation between cosmic distance and redshift that corresponds to an accelerating Universe, and, as a consequence, the presence of an energy component with negative pressure. This…
We review the use of Type Ia supernovae for cosmological distance determinations. Low-redshift SNe Ia ($z \lesssim 0.1$) demonstrate that (a) the Hubble expansion is linear, (b) $H_0 = 65 \pm 2$ (statistical) km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, (c) the…
Recent astronomical observations indicate that the Universe is presently almost flat and undergoing a period of accelerated expansion. Basing on Einstein's general relativity all these observations can be explained by the hypothesis of a…
An alternative to the postulate of dark energy required to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe is to adopt an inhomogeneous cosmological model to explain the supernovae data without dark energy. We adopt a void cosmology…
Observers have demonstrated that it is now feasible to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature at high redshifts. We explore the possible constraints on cosmology which might ultimately be derived from such measurements.…
We discuss the testable predictions of a phenomenological model in which the accelerated expansion of the universe is the result of the action of a non-gravitational force field, rather than the effect of a negative-pressure dark-energy…
The invariance of the speed of light in the distant universe has profound significance for fundamental physics. In this paper, we propose a new model-independent method to test the invariance of the speed of light $c$ at different redshifts…
We explore the distance-redshift relation using a cosmographic methodology, and show how the cosmographic parameters can be used to determine the redshift of transition from deceleration to acceleration. Such a transition at a low redshift…
In this paper, we obtain luminosity distances by using ages of 32 old passive galaxies distributed over the redshift interval $0.11 < z < 1.84$ and test the cosmic conservation of photon number by comparing them with 580 distance moduli of…
Cosmic opacity may vary spatially due to the inhomogeneous distribution of dust, its grain properties, and the efficiency of photon attenuation. In this work, we present a model independent method to investigate the variation of cosmic…