Related papers: Introductory Overview of Modern Cosmology
Inflationary cosmology has become one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology. Inflation was the first theory within which it was possible to make predictions about the structure of the Universe on large scales, based on causal physics. The…
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
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'…
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
We review current theoretical cosmology, including fundamental and mathematical cosmology and physical cosmology (as well as cosmology in the quantum realm), with an emphasis on open questions.
Basic cosmology describes the universe as a Robertson-Walker model filled with black-body radiation and no barionic matter, and as observational data it uses only the value of the speed of light, the Hubble and deceleration parameters and…
Theoretical approaches to explaining the observed acceleration of the universe are reviewed. We briefly discuss the evidence for cosmic acceleration, and the implications for standard General Relativity coupled to conventional sources of…
The hot big-bang cosmology provides a reliable accounting of the Universe from about $10^{-2}\sec$ after the bang until the present, as well as a robust framework for speculating back to times as early as $10^{-43}\sec$. Cosmology faces a…
We review the broad status of cosmology and discuss a model of fluctuational cosmology in which the universe is created in a phase transition like phenomenon mimicking inflation, and which further consistently explains latest observations…
Cosmology is an attracting subject for students but usually difficult to deal with if general relativity is not known. In this article, we first recall the Newtonian derivation of the Friedmann equations which govern the dynamics of our…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
Cosmology, as a science, started at the beginning of the last century with the advent of the Einstein cosmological equations. Based on these equations, the present main stream cosmological model is the well known big-bang, this name…
This paper gives an elementary introduction to some of the conceptual problems of quantum cosmology. Contents: 1. Why quantum cosmology? 2. Time in quantum gravity 3.Decoherence and the recovery of the Schrodinger equation 4. The direction…
Many pedagogical introductions of cosmological inflation are effective due to the simplicity of the relevant equations. Here an analytic solution of the cosmological equations is presented and used as an example to discuss fundamental…
An elementary survey of mathematical cosmology is presented. We cover certain key ideas and developments in a qualitative way, from the time of the Einstein static universe in 1917 until today. We divide our presentation into four main…
The difficult issues related to the interpretation of quantum mechanics and, in particular, the "measurement problem" are revisited using as motivation the process of generation of structure from quantum fluctuations in inflationary…
In the first Lecture, the Big Bang and the Standard Model of particle physics are introduced, as well as the structure of the latter and open issues beyond it. Neutrino physics is discussed in the second Lecture, with emphasis on models for…
The physical basis of the modern cosmological inflationary models with baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter and energy implies such predictions of particle theory, that, in turn, apply to cosmology for their test. It makes physics of…