Related papers: Time at the Beginning
During Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), in the first 20 minutes of the evolution of the Universe, the light nuclides, D, 3He, 4He, and 7Li were synthesized in astrophysically interesting abundances. The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation…
We summarize some applications of big bang nucleosythesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain the first moments of the creation of matter in the universe. We review the basic elements of BBN and how it constraints…
An overview is presented of a recently proposed "radically conservative" solution to the problem of dark energy in cosmology. The proposal yields a model universe which appears to be quantitatively viable, in terms of its fit to supernovae…
The standard cosmological model, based on general relativity with an inflationary era, is very effective in accounting for a broad range of observed features of the universe. However, the ongoing puzzles about the nature of dark matter and…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides a precious window on fundamental physics at very high energy scales, possibly including quantum gravity, GUTs and supersymmetry. The CMB has already enabled defect-based rivals to inflation to…
We provide preliminary quantitative evidence that a new solution to averaging the observed inhomogeneous structure of matter in the universe [gr-qc/0702082, arxiv:0709.0732], may lead to an observationally viable cosmology without exotic…
The observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of gravitation and particle physics are incomplete, if not incorrect. A new generation of astronomical facilities will shortly be able to…
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?…
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 temperature anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provide a window back to the physics of the early universe. They encode the nature of the initial fluctuations and so can reveal much about the…
Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies provide strong evidence for the existence of dark matter and dark energy. They can also test its composition, probing the energy density and particle mass of different…
Several cosmological measurements have attained significant levels of maturity and accuracy over the last decade. Continuing this trend, future observations promise measurements of the statistics of the cosmic mass distribution at an…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
An impressive amount of different astrophysical data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing a today phase of accelerated expansion. The nature of the dark energy dominating the energy content of the universe…
In this paper, time variable cosmological constant, dubbed {\it age cosmological constant}, is investigated motivated by the fact: any cosmological length scale and time scale can introduce a cosmological constant or vacuum energy density…
Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role allowing precise determination of various parameters of the `standard' cosmological model. The expectation of the paradigm of inflation and…
We present explicit expressions for the calculation of cosmological look back time, for zero cosmological constant and arbitrary density parameter $\Omega$, which, in the limit as redshift becomes infinite, give the age of the universe. The…
We explore how local, cosmology-independent measurements of the Hubble constant and the age of the Universe help to provide a powerful consistency check of the currently favored cosmological model (flat LambdaCDM) and model-independent…
The next generation of instruments designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) will provide a historic opportunity to open the gravitational wave window to the primordial Universe. Through high sensitivity…
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…