Related papers: The Dark Sector Cosmology
The dark side of the universe is mysterious and its nature is still unknown. In fact, this poses perhaps as the biggest challenge in the modern cosmology. The two components of the dark sector (dark matter and dark energy) correspond today…
Dark energy appears to be the dominant component of the physical Universe, yet there is no persuasive theoretical explanation for its existence or magnitude. The acceleration of the Universe is, along with dark matter, the observed…
Despite the observational success of the standard model of cosmology, present-day observations do not tightly constrain the nature of dark matter and dark energy and modifications to the theory of general relativity. Here, we will discuss…
A six parameter cosmological model, involving a vacuum energy density that is extremely tiny compared to fundamental particle physics scales, describes a large body of increasingly accurate astronomical data. In a first part of this brief…
Dark matter is a fundamental constituent of the universe, which is needed to explain a wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations. Although the existence of dark matter was first postulated nearly a century ago and its…
The current standard model of cosmology - the {\ensuremath{\Lambda}}CDM model - is appropriately named after its controversial foreign ingredients: a cosmological constant ({\ensuremath{\Lambda}}) that accounts for the recent accelerated…
Answering well-known fundamental questions is usually regarded as the major goal of science. Discovery of other unknown and fundamental questions is, however, even more important. Recognition that "we didn't know anything" is the basic…
The high-quality cosmological data, which became available in the last decade, have thrusted upon us a rather preposterous composition for the universe which poses one of the greatest challenges theoretical physics has ever faced: the…
These lectures have been given to particle physicists, mostly experimentalists and very briefly and at a pedestrian level review the problems of dark matter. The content of the lectures is the following: 1. Introduction. 2. Cosmological…
A huge amount of good quality data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision Cosmology. Despite…
The dark sector of the Universe is beginning to be clarified step by step. If the dark energy is vacuum energy, then 123 orders are exactly reduced by ordinary physical processes. For many years these unexplained orders were called a crisis…
I present some new perspectives on Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the origin of structure in the Universe. First, I argue that in order to understand the two latter issues, one needs to go beyond a standard point particle effective field…
While astrophysical and cosmological probes provide a remarkably precise and consistent picture of the quantity and general properties of dark matter, its fundamental nature remains one of the most significant open questions in physics.…
I consider some of the issues we face in trying to understand dark energy. Huge fluctuations in the unknown dark energy equation of state can be hidden in distance data, so I argue that model-independent tests which signal if the…
I briefly review our current understanding of dark matter and dark energy. The first part of this paper focusses on issues pertaining to dark matter including observational evidence for its existence, current constraints and the `abundance…
In this talk I summarize the topics addressed during the conference. We have discussed the most relevant cosmological observations of the last say 10 years and their implications for our understanding of the Universe. My finding throughout…
The present standard model of cosmology states that the known particles carry only a tiny fraction of total mass and energy of the Universe. Rather, unknown dark matter and dark energy are the dominant contributions to the cosmic energy…
Dark matter is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in cosmology at the present time. About 80% of the universe's gravitating matter is non-luminous, and its nature and distribution are for the most part unknown. In this paper, we will…
The accelerated expansion of the Universe is one of the main discoveries of the past decades, indicating the presence of an unknown component: the dark energy. Evidence of its presence is being gathered by a succession of observational…
As cosmology has entered a phase of precision experiments, the content of the universe has been established to contain interesting and not yet fully understood components, namely dark energy and dark matter. While the cause and exact nature…