Related papers: Do anthropic arguments really work?
With the basic cosmological relations that agree with the recent observations, simple expressions are suggested concerning the value of cosmological constant($\Lambda$). A large contribution of quantum vacuum to the energy momentum tensor…
Dark energy (and its simplest model, the Cosmological Constant or $\Lambda$) acts as a repulsive force that opposes gravitational attraction. Assuming galaxies maintain a steady state over extended periods, the estimated upper limit on…
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
The rate of black hole formation can be increased by increasing the value of the cosmological constant. This falsifies Smolin's conjecture that the values of all constants of nature are adjusted to maximize black hole production.
The galaxy cluster power spectrum and mass/temperature functions are currently the most precise observational tools for constraining the theory of the formation of large scale structure (LSS) in the Universe. Complementing these tests by…
Recent analyses show that $\Lambda$CDM-based models optimised to reproduce the clustering of massive galaxies overestimate their gravitational lensing by about 30\%, the so-called lensing is low problem. Using a state-of-the-art…
Surveys with submillimetre telescopes are revealing large numbers of gravitationally lensed high-redshift sources. I describe how, in practice, these lensed systems could be simultaneously used to estimate the values of cosmological…
Observational cosmology has indeed made very rapid progress in recent years. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation. The transition to precision cosmology…
The world view suggested by quantum cosmology is that inflating universes with all possible values of the fundamental constants are spontaneously created out of nothing. I explore the consequences of the assumption that we are a `typical'…
In this review I will describe a number of recent advances in extragalactic astronomy. First of all I will describe our current best estimates of the star formation history of the Universe. Then I will describe measurements of local…
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
This work is related to different questions within cosmology. The principal idea herein is to develop cosmological knowledge making use of the analyses of observational data in order to find the values of the matter density Omega_m and…
Planetary effects have been attributed to biological processes without scientific rigor. Some generic invisible slow matter from the dark Universe in the form of streams or clusters with occasional large flux enhancements due to planetary…
After reviewing the cosmological constant problem - why is Lambda not huge? - I outline the two basic approaches that had emerged by the late 1980s, and note that each made a clear prediction. Precision cosmological experiments now indicate…
The matter content of the Universe is strongly inhomogeneous on small scales. Motivated by this fact, we consider a model of the Universe that has regularly spaced discrete masses, rather than a continuous fluid. The optical properties of…
The last decade has shown a considerable development of gravitational lensing for cosmology because it probes the amount and the nature of dark matter, and provides information on the density parameter $\Omega$, the cosmological constant…
In these lectures I review the present status of the so-called Standard Cosmological Model, based on the hot Big Bang Theory and the Inflationary Paradigm. I will make special emphasis on the recent developments in observational cosmology,…
The expansion of the observed universe appears to be accelerating. A simple explanation of this phenomenon is provided by the non-vanishing of the cosmological constant in the Einstein equations. Arguments are commonly presented to the…
We explore the qualitative changes that would occur if the amplitude Q ~ 10^{-5} of cosmological density fluctuations were different. If is less than about 10^{-6}, the cosmological objects that form would have so low virial temperatures…
The possibility of determining cosmological parameters on the basis of a wide set of observational data including the Abell-ACO cluster power spectrum and mass function, peculiar velocities of galaxies, the distribution of Ly-$\alpha$…