Related papers: What do very nearly flat detectable cosmic topolog…
We evaluate the observational constraints on the spectral index $n$, in the context of the $\Lambda$CDM hypothesis which represents the simplest viable cosmology. We first take $n$ to be practically scale-independent. Ignoring reionization,…
Cosmological inflation is the dominating paradigm to account for observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). In this thesis, we study the phenomenology of a class of particularly well motivated models of inflation, known under…
When the topology of the universe is non trivial, it has been shown that there are constraints on the network of domain walls, cosmic strings and monopoles. I generalize these results to textures and study the cosmological implications of…
Current observational data is consistent with the universe being slightly closed. We investigate families of singular and non-singular closed instantons that could describe the beginning of a closed inflationary universe. We calculate the…
We consider the problem of describing the asymptotic behaviour of \textsc{FRW} universes near their spacetime singularities in general relativity. We find that the Bel-Robinson energy of these universes in conjunction with the Hubble…
We present a novel theory of the very early universe which addresses the traditional horizon and flatness problems of big bang cosmology and predicts a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations. Unlike inflation, this scenario requires no…
Cosmological parameters are constrained by a wide variety of observations. We examine the concordance diagram for modern measurements of the Hubble constant, the shape parameter from large scale structure, the cluster baryon fraction, and…
We apply the principles of quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology to predict probabilities for our local observations of a universe undergoing false vacuum eternal inflation. At a sufficiently fine-grained level, histories of the universe…
Forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments (CMB) will provide precise new tests of structure-formation theories. The geometry of the Universe may be determined robustly, and the classical cosmological parameters, such as the…
We investigate the effects of non-zero spatial curvature on cosmic inflation in the light of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements from the Planck 2018 legacy release and from the 2015 observing season of BICEP2 and the…
Astrophysical observations indicate that the ``Local Universe" has a relatively lower matter density ($\Omega_0$) than the predictions of the standard inflation cosmology and the large-scale motions of galaxies which provide a mean mass…
We use the physically-consistent tilted spatially-flat and untilted non-flat $\Lambda$CDM inflation models to constrain cosmological parameter values with the Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data and recent Type Ia…
The near-isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is considered to be the strongest indication for the homogeneity and isotropy of the universe, a cornerstone of most cosmological analysis. We derive new theorems which extend the…
It has been known for some time that the usual inference drawn from the observed near-flatness of the large-scale Universe - namely the existence of a cosmological "flatness problem", which is then taken as a partial, but key motivation for…
A simple inhomogeneous cosmological model with a local void is constrained with the latest Union supernova compilation. To fit the supernova data, a large local void on the scales of 1 Gpc is found, contrary to the small scales of 200 Mpc…
We demonstrate that the strict upper bounds on the energy scale of inflation and on the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be somewhat relaxed if we assume that - after an initial period of slow rolling when scales probed today in CMB experiments…
Cosmology is operating now on a well established and tightly constraining empirical basis. The relativistic LambdaCDM hot big bang theory is consistent with all the present tests; it has become the benchmark. But the many open issues in…
If the universe has a nontrivial shape (topology) the sky may show multiple correlated images of cosmic objects. These correlations can be couched in terms of distance correlations. We propose a statistical quantity which can be used to…
In this talk we discuss three different issues. First of all, there exist several proposals how to solve cosmological problems by adiabatic expansion of the Universe, without any use of inflation. We explain why these models do not solve…
Observable quantities in cosmology are dimensionless, and therefore independent of the units in which they are measured. This is true of all physical quantities associated with the primordial perturbations that source cosmic microwave…