Related papers: Introductory Overview of Modern Cosmology
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
Recent advances in our understanding of the Universe have revolutionized our view of its structure, composition and evolution. However, these new ideas have not necessarily been used to improve the teaching of introductory astronomy…
At present, there is practically no doubt that general relativity is closely related to gravity. Moreover, after the work of Jacobson, Padmanabhan and others, it became clear that a thermodynamic interpretation of Einstein's relativistic…
In this letter, we outline an inhomogeneous model of the Big Bang cosmology. For the inhomogeneous spacetime used here, the universe originates in the infinite past as the one dominated by vacuum energy and ends in the infinite future as…
This set of lectures provides an overview of the basic theory and phenomenology of the cosmic microwave background. Topics include a brief historical review; the physics of temperature and polarization fluctuations; acoustic oscillations of…
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
The cosmic inflation hypothesis, its relation to fundamental theory on the beginning of the universe, and the light that both shed on how the various elements and their relative amounts came into existence. The fundamental factors…
One hundred years ago we did not know how stars generate energy, the age of the Universe was thought to be only millions of years, and our Milky Way galaxy was the only galaxy known. Today, we know that we live in an evolving and expanding…
In this talk I review the present status of inflationary cosmology and its emergence as the basic paradigm behind the Standard Cosmological Model, with parameters determined today at better than 10% level from CMB and LSS observations.
On the occasion of a century from the proposal of General relativity by Einstein, I attempt to tackle some open issues in modern cosmology, via a toy but non-trivial model. Specifically, I would like to link together: (i) the smallness of…
We make the hypothesis that the velocity of light and the expansion of the universe are two aspects of one single concept connecting space and time in the expanding universe. We show that solving Friedman's equations with that…
These lectures provide a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the theory of cosmological perturbations generated during inflation which are thought to be the origin of structure in the universe.
We advance the viewpoint that only relevant modes of the vacuum fluctuations, namely, with wavelengths conditioned by the size, homogeneity, geometry and topology of the Universe, do contribute into the cosmological constant. A formula is…
The early cosmic inflation, when taken along with the recent observations that the universe is currently dominated by a low density vacuum energy, leads to at least two potential problems which modern cosmology must address. First, there is…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
Loop quantum cosmology applies techniques derived for a background independent quantization of general relativity to cosmological situations and draws conclusions for the very early universe. Direct implications for the singularity problem…
I review the basics of neutrino cosmology, from the question of neutrino decoupling and the presence of sterile neutrinos to the effects of neutrinos on the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure. Particular emphasis is put…
I discuss how modern cosmology illustrates under-determination of theoretical hypotheses by data, in ways that are different from most philosophical discussions. I emphasize cosmology's concern with what data could in principle be collected…