Related papers: Developments in Cosmic Growth and Gravitation
Weak gravitational lensing on a cosmological scales can provide strong constraints both on the nature of dark matter and the dark energy equation of state. Most current weak lensing studies are restricted to (two-dimensional) projections,…
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
The past few years have seen several breakthroughs in particle astrophysics and cosmology. In several cases, new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. In this talk I summarize some of these…
Despite two decades of tremendous experimental and theoretical progress, the riddle of the accelerated expansion of the Universe remains to be solved. On the experimental side, our understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the…
Viable models of modified gravity designed to produce cosmic acceleration at the current epoch, closely mimic the $\Lambda$CDM model at the level of background cosmology. However, this degeneracy is generically broken at the level of linear…
We review results from cosmic X-ray surveys of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) over the past ~ 15 yr that have dramatically improved our understanding of growing supermassive black holes in the distant universe. First, we discuss the utility…
The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey is now well underway, having already measured the redshifts to ~5600 galaxies in its first season of observations. Here I briefly review the survey itself, before discussing in more detail some of the…
I give an overview of the effects of neutrino masses in cosmology, focussing on the role they play in the evolution of cosmological perturbations. I discuss how recent observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the…
The cosmic expansion history tests the dynamics of the global evolution of the universe and its energy density contents, while the cosmic growth history tests the evolution of the inhomogeneous part of the energy density. Precision…
Our standard model of the Universe predicts the distribution of dark matter to $1\%$ at the scales needed for upcoming experiments, yet our predictions for how the luminous matter -- which has interactions besides gravity -- is distributed…
The knowledge of the intrinsic three-dimensional (3D) structure of galaxy components provides crucial information about the physical processes driving their formation and evolution. In this paper I discuss the main developments and results…
A review of the present observational and theoretical status of elliptical galaxies is presented with the aim to clarify whether the monolithic or the hierarchical, is a more viable scenario for the origin of these structures. We describe…
(Abridged) Cosmology faces three distinct challenges in the next decade. (1) The dark sector, both dark matter and dark energy, dominates the Universe. Key questions include determining the nature of both. Improved observational probes are…
The growth of large scale structure is a battle between gravitational attraction and cosmic acceleration. We investigate the future behavior of cosmic growth under both general relativity (GR) and modified gravity during prolonged…
Galactic interstellar dust has a profound impact not only on our observations of objects throughout the Universe, but also on the morphology, star formation, and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The advent of massive imaging and…
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,…
I present an overview of the science goals and achievements of ongoing spectroscopic surveys of individual stars in the nearby Universe. I include a brief discussion of the development of the field of Galactic Archaeology - using the fossil…
A standard theoretical paradigm for the formation of large-scale structure in the distribution of galaxies has now been established, based on the gravitational instability of cold dark matter in a background cosmology dominated by vacuum…
Synoptic sky surveys are becoming the largest data generators in astronomy, and they are opening a new research frontier, that touches essentially every field of astronomy. Opening of the time domain to a systematic exploration will…
Research over the past 25 years has led to the view that the rich tapestry of present-day cosmic structure arose during the first instants of creation, where weak ripples were imposed on the otherwise uniform and rapidly expanding…