Related papers: A peek outside our Universe
Recent observations for three types of astrophysical systems severely challenge the GR plus dark matter scenario, showing a phenomenology which is what modified gravity theories predict. Stellar kinematics in the outskirts of globular…
We present a model of the expanding Universe that begins in a zero energy vacuum state. The Universe results from the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry, wherein the vacuum with positive expectation energy produces the dark…
Cosmological observations are beginning to reach a level of precision that allow us to test some of the most fundamental assumptions in our working model of the Universe. One such an assumption is that gravity is governed by the General…
Modern cosmology has sharpened questions posed for millennia about the origin of our cosmic habitat. The age-old questions have been transformed into two pressing issues primed for attack in the coming decade: How did the Universe begin?…
Research over the past three decades has revolutionized the field of cosmology while supporting the standard cosmological model. However, the cosmological principle of Universal homogeneity and isotropy has always been in question, since…
Theoretically, the running of the cosmological constant in the IR region is not ruled out. On the other hand, from the QFT viewpoint, the energy released due to the variation of the cosmological constant in the late universe cannot go to…
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…
We argue a scenario motivated by the context of string landscape, where our universe is produced by a new vacuum bubble embedded in an old bubble and these bubble universes have not only different cosmological constants, but also their own…
The limitations of current technology do not allow one to foresee the expansion of the humankind beyond our planet for at least a few decades. Furthermore, the laws of physics, as for as they are known, preclude any form of traveling beyond…
I study seven novel observational tests of general relativity. First, I show that a gravitational wave pulse from a major merger of massive black holes at the Galactic center induces a permanent increase in the Earth-Moon separation.…
Gravity whose nature is fundamental to the understanding of solar system, galaxies and the structure and evolution of the Universe, is theorized by the assumption of curved spacetime, according to Einstein`s general theory of relativity…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
Cosmic horizons arise in general relativity in the context of black holes and in certain cosmologies. Classically, regions beyond a horizon are inaccessible to causal observers. However, quantum mechanical correlations may exist across…
Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are short and intense pulses of $\gamma$-rays arriving from random directions in the sky. Several years ago Amelino-Camelia et al. pointed out that a comparison of time of arrival of photons at different energies…
I describe an approach which connects classical gravity with the quantum microstructure of spacetime. The field equations arise from maximizing the density of states of matter plus geometry. The former is identified using the thermodynamics…
The aim of this thesis is to question some of the basic assumptions that go into building the $\Lambda$CDM model of our universe. The assumptions we focus on are the initial conditions of the universe, the fundamental forces in the universe…
In this letter we investigate some consequences of considering our 4D observable universe as locally and isometrically embeded into a 5D spacetime, where gravity is described by a Brans-Dicke theory in vacuum. Once we impose the embeding…
This book provides a completely new approach to understanding the universe. The main idea is that the principal objects in the universe form a spectrum unified by the presence of a massive or hypermassive black hole. These objects are…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly and indirectly from a large body of observational evidence. The simplest and most theoretically appealing possibility is the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant).…
The Cosmological Principle states that the universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. This, alone, is not enough to specify the global geometry of the spacetime. If we were able to measure both the Hubble constant and the energy density we…