Related papers: TASI Lectures on Primordial Cosmology
We note that in general there exist two basic aspects in any branch of physics, including cosmology - one dealing with the attributes of basic constituents and forces of nature, the other dealing with how structures arise from them and how…
The potential role of cosmic topological defects has raised interest in the astrophysical community for many years now. In this set of notes, we give an introduction to the subject of cosmic topological defects and some of their possible…
The highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely to be associated with the most energetic processes in the Universe. Their existence triggered a flurry of theoretical explanations ranging from…
We briefly discuss cosmic inflation, which is the dominant paradigm for the generation of the large scale structure in the Universe and also for arranging for the initial conditions of the hot Big Bang. We then present quintessential…
I present a briefly summary of the current status of inflationary models versus topological defects scenarios, as the mechanisms which could have induced the initial density perturbations, which left an imprint on the cosmic microwave…
These lecture notes are based on those presented at the Theoretical Aspects of Astroparticle Physics, Cosmology and Gravitation School at the Galileo Galilee Institute in Florence in 2021, https://agenda.infn.it/event/24368/. They aim to…
Cosmology is living through fascinating times, where new observations from ground and space telescopes are questioning the established paradigm, the so-called Lambda Cold Dark Matter model. The particle nature of Dark Matter is severely…
The Hubble expansion of galaxies, the $2.73\dK$ blackbody radiation background and the cosmic abundances of the light elements argue for a hot, dense origin of the universe --- the standard Big Bang cosmology --- and enable its evolution to…
Today, both particle physics and cosmology are described by few parameter Standard Models, i.e. it is possible to deduce consequence of particle physics in cosmology and vice verse. The former is examined in this lecture, in light of the…
We calculate the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background induced by long-wavelength primordial gravitational waves in a universe with negative spatial curvature, such as are produced in the ``open inflation'' scenario. The impact of…
Since the first detection by the DASI experiment in 2002, measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have grown into an important role in testing our understanding of conditions in the early universe and…
We devise a novel mechanism and for the first time demonstrate that the Higgs model in particle physics can drive the inflation to satisfy the cosmic microwave background observations and simultaneously enhance the curvature perturbations…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
Inflation models are numerous. It is extremely difficult, if possible at all, to identify the actual underlying inflation model of our primordial universe. Thus, for the purpose of proving/falsifying inflation and using inflation to probe…
Massive bigravity, a theoretically consistent modification of general relativity with an additional dynamical rank two tensor, successfully describes the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe without a cosmological constant. Recent…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have and will continue to revolutionize our understanding of cosmology. The recent discovery of the previously predicted acoustic peaks in the power spectrum has established a…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…
The physics of the origin and evolution of CMB anisotropies is described. I explain the idea and status of cosmic parameter estimation and follow it up with critical comments on its dependence on model assumptions and initial conditions.
Cosmic rays are nowadays a crucial tool to study the astrophysics of extreme objects in the Universe, the cosmic environmental plasma (both Galactic and extra-galactic), the physics of nuclear interactions or the properties of elementary…