Related papers: Ultra Long-Term Cosmology and Astrophysics
We discuss the phenomenological imprints of modifications to gravity in the early universe with a specific focus on the time of recombination. We derive several interesting results regarding the effect that such modifications have on…
Observations at long wavelengths, in the wide interval from a few to 1000 micron, are essential to study diffuse media in galaxies, including all kinds of atomic, ionic and molecular gases and dust grains. Hence they are particularly suited…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
The good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard $\Lambda$CDM theory gives us hope that this will become a lasting foundation for cosmology. After briefly reviewing the current status of the key…
This talk, presented at the 5th Rencontres du Vietnam 2004, gives a review of the cosmological implications of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. The observational progress that has been made over the past decade is discussed and…
In a perturbed Universe, comoving tracers on a two-dimensional surface of constant observed redshift are at different proper time since the Big Bang. For tracers whose age is known independently, one can measure these perturbations of the…
The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…
A new interpretation of cosmological redshifts is proposed to construct the evolved-vacuum model of this phenomenon.The physical vacuum was considered to be a real matter with time-dependent permittivity and permeability. Time variation of…
This article is the written version of the closing talk presented at the conference `A Century of Cosmology' held at San Servolo, Italy, in August 2007. I focus on the prospects of constraining fundamental physics from cosmological…
We perform a cosmographic analysis using several cosmological observables such as the luminosity distance moduli, the volume distance, the angular diameter distance and the Hubble parameter. These quantities are determined using different…
We use data from observational cosmology to put constraints on higher-dimensional extensions of general relativity in which the effective four-dimensional dark-energy density (or cosmological "constant") decays with time. In particular we…
Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has grappled with the big questions of existence and creation. Modern cosmology seeks to answer some of these questions using a combination of mathematics and measurement. The questions people hope…
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect provides a useful probe of cosmology and structure formation in the Universe. Recent years have seen rapid progress in both quality and quantity of its measurements. In this review, we overview cosmological and…
In this series of lectures we review observational evidence for, and theoretical investigations into, cosmic acceleration and dark energy. The notes are in four sections. First I review the basic cosmological formalism to describe the…
The non-linear relation between X-ray and UV luminosity in quasars can be used to estimate their distance. Recently, we have shown that despite the large dispersion of the relation, a Hubble Diagram made of large samples of quasars can…
Cosmology seems extremely remote from everyday human practice and experience. It is usually taken for granted that cosmological data cannot rationally influence our beliefs about the fate of humanity -- and possible other intelligent…
Possibly the most peculiar expectation of the standard fine-tuned cosmological paradigm is that cosmic acceleration is to only be a very recent (z<1) phenomenon, with the universe being required to be decelerating at all higher redshifts.…
Although the universe at redshifts greater than six represents only the first one billion years (<10%) of cosmic time, the dense nature of the early universe led to vigorous galaxy formation and evolution activity which we are only now…
CMB lensing tomography, or the cross-correlation between CMB lensing maps and large-scale structure tracers over a well-defined redshift range, has the potential to map the amplitude and growth of structure over cosmic time, provide some of…
The current tension between early- and late-Universe measurements of the Hubble constant ($H_0$), along with the still elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy, calls for model-independent probes of the Universe's expansion history.…