Related papers: The Cosmological Tests
Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of…
The past few years have seen several breakthroughs in particle astrophysics and cosmology. In several cases, new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. In this talk I summarize some of these…
The current cosmic time evolution of the Universe is described by the General Relativity theory when a cosmological principle is considered under a flat space time landscape. The set of known as Friedmann equations, contain the principles…
It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant…
I consider the relation of explanations for the observed data to testability in the following contexts: observational and experimental detection of dark matter; observational and experimental detection of dark energy or a cosmological…
The standard big bang cosmology has been greatly successful in explaining many observational aspects of the real universe. However, two particular diffficulties faced by it are the so-called ``horizon'' and ``flatness'' problems. By…
The Standard Cosmological Model of the 1980's is no more. I describe the definitive evidence that the density of matter is insufficient to result in a flat universe, as well as the mounting evidence that the cosmological constant is not…
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…
We review recent progress in the construction of modified gravity models as alternatives to dark energy as well as the development of cosmological tests of gravity. Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) has been tested accurately…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background represent a remarkable source of information for modern cosmology. Besides providing impressive support for the Big Bang model itself, they quantify the overall framework, or background, for…
Influenced by the renaissance of general relativity that came to pass in the 1950s, the character of cosmology fundamentally changed in the 1960s as it became a well-established empirical science. Although observations went to dominate its…
Cosmology as an exact physical science is of new date, but it has long roots in the past. This essay is concerned with four important themes in the history of cosmological thought which, if taken together, offer a fairly comprehensive…
General Relativity and the $\Lambda$CDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the…
In this paper, we investigate the recently proposed relativistic theory for MOND using the phase space analysis. Unlike its precedent theory, namely TeVeS, this theory is claimed to agree with the observed Cosmic Microwave Background and…
The comparison of the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM) with astronomical observations, i.e. theory versus experiment, and with the Minimal Standard Model (MSM) in particle physics, i.e. theory versus theory, is discussed. The main issue of…
We are now beginning to learn detailed information about cosmological parameters from the shapes of the matter and radiation power spectra, together with their relative normalization. As more high quality data are gathered from galaxy…
Newtonian Cosmology is commonly used in astrophysical problems, because of its obvious simplicity when compared with general relativity. However it has inherent difficulties, the most obvious of which is the non-existence of a well-posed…
We review recent developments and results in testing general relativity (GR) at cosmological scales. The subject has witnessed rapid growth during the last two decades with the aim of addressing the question of cosmic acceleration and the…
There has been significant recent progress in observational cosmology. This, in turn, has provided an unprecedented picture of the early universe and its evolution. In this review I will present a (biased) view of how one can use these…
An overview is given of the current status of the theory and observations of the acceleration of the expansion of the observable part of the Universe. Contents 1. Historical Introduction 2. Friedmann equations and cosmological acceleration…