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The evolution of the wave function in quantum mechanics is deterministic like that of classical waves. Only when we bring in observers the fundamentally different quantum reality emerges. Similarly the introduction of observers changes the…
We propose that physical time is based on counting the oscillations of wave functions. The discrete counting of the ticks of these clocks does not depend on the metric frame. It remains well defined for the beginning epochs of the universe.…
From classical mechanics to quantum field theory, the physical facts at one point in space are held to be independent of those at other points in space. I propose that we can usefully challenge this orthodoxy in order to explain otherwise…
We perform a new and accurate study of the dependence on cosmological parameters of structure formation with local cosmic strings. The crucial new ingredients are the inclusion of the effects of gravitational backreaction on the evolution…
In recent years, the use of conformal transformation techniques has become widespread in the literature on gravitational theories alternative to general relativity, on cosmology, and on nonminimally coupled scalar fields. Typically, the…
The spectroscopic factor has long played a central role in nuclear reaction theory. However, it is not an observable. Consequently it is of minimal use as a meeting point between theory and experiment. In this paper the nature of the…
Some issues of the cosmological constant or dark energy are briefly reviewed. There are an increasing number of observations that constrain the equation of state of dark energy more stringently and favor the time-independent cosmological…
We investigate the ability to constrain oscillatory features in the primordial power spectrum using current and future cosmic microwave background observations. In particular, we study the observability of an oscillation arising from…
We study the influence of the fluctuations of a Lorentz invariant and conserved vacuum on cosmological metric perturbations, and show that they generically blow up in the IR. We compute this effect using the K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral…
Scale dependence of fundamental physical parameters is a generic feature of ordinary quantum field theory. When applied to gravity, this idea produces effective actions generically containing a running Newtonian coupling constant, from…
In an undulant universe, cosmic expansion is characterized by alternating periods of acceleration and deceleration. We examine cosmologies in which the dark-energy equation of state varies periodically with the number of e-foldings of the…
The late-time cosmological dynamics of disformal gravity are investigated using dynamical systems methods. It is shown that in the general case there are no stable attractors that screen fifth-forces locally and simultaneously describe a…
A range of cosmological observations demonstrate an accelerated expansion of the Universe, and the most likely explanation of this phenomenon is a cosmological constant. Given the importance of understanding the underlying physics, it is…
In unified field theories with more than four dimensions, the form of the equations of physics in spacetime depends in general on the choice of coordinates in higher dimensions. The reason is that the group of coordinate transformations in…
Recent results regarding dark energy are mutually inconsistent under the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, hinting at the possibility of undiscovered physics. However, the currently accepted cosmological parameters come from a joint…
We consider a universe with a positive effective cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field. When the coupling constant is negative, the scalar field exhibits linear growth at asymptotically late times, resulting in a…
Cosmography is a phenomenological and relatively model-independent approach to cosmology, where physical quantities are expanded as a Taylor series in the cosmological redshift, or in related variables. Here we apply this methodology to…
What is the influence of cosmology (the expansion law and its acceleration, the cosmological constant...) on the dynamics and optics of a local system like the solar system, a galaxy, a cluster, a supercluster...? The answer requires the…
It is shown that quantum uncertainty of motion in systems controlled mainly by gravity generally grows with orbital timescale $H^{-1}$, and dominates classical motion for trajectories separated by distances less than $\approx H^{-3/5}$ in…
Although many people have thought that the difference between the Copenhagen and many-worlds versions of quantum theory was merely metaphysical, quantum cosmology may allow us to make a physical test to distinguish between them empirically.…