Related papers: Open Problems in Cosmology
The relativistic LambdaCDM cosmological model has passed a demanding network of tests that convincingly demonstrate it is a useful approximation to what happened back to high redshift. But there are anomalies in its application to structure…
Modern cosmology is built on the assumption that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales - but this is challenged by results of the Ellis-Baldwin test that show an unexplained anomaly in the distribution of distant…
We review the current standard model for the evolution of the Universe from an early inflationary epoch to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. We summarize and provide key references for the following topics: observations of the…
Started approximately in the late 1980s, exoplanetology has up to now unveiled the main gross bulk characteristics of planets and planetary systems. In the future it will benefit from more and more large telescopes and advanced space…
This paper provides a prospectus for a new way of thinking about the wavefunction of the universe: a $\Psi$-epistemic quantum cosmology. We present a proposal that, if successfully implemented, would resolve the cosmological measurement…
I review the current status of cosmology as emerging from recent observations of cosmic microwave background anisotropies as well as from other sources of cosmological information.
The recent announcement from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite experiment combined with other recent advances in observational cosmology verifies key components of the standard cosmological model. However, we argue…
This is one chapter of the collection of problems in cosmology, in which we assemble the problems, with solutions, that concern one of the most distinctive features of general relativity and cosmology---the horizons. The first part gives an…
Cosmology is a field of physics in which the use of General Relativity theory is indispensable. However, a cosmology based on Newtonian gravity theory for gravity is possible in certain circumstances. The applicability of Newtonian theory…
ESO and ESA agreed to establish a number of Working Groups to explore possible synergies between these two major European astronomical institutions. This Working Group's mandate was to concentrate on fundamental questions in cosmology, and…
The ability to map the cosmological expansion has developed enormously, spurred by the turning point one decade ago of the discovery of cosmic acceleration. The standard model of cosmology has shifted from a matter dominated, standard…
There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve…
The Hubble constant sets the size and age of the Universe, and, together with independent determinations of the age, provides a consistency check of the standard cosmology. The Hubble constant also provides an important test of our most…
The changes of main paradigms on the structure and evolution of the Universe are reviewed. Two puzzles of the modern cosmology, the mean density of matter and the regularity of the Universe on large scales, as well as the possibility to…
This contribution intends to give a pedagogical introduction to the topic of dark energy (the mysterious agent supposed to drive the observed late time acceleration of the Universe) and to various observational tests which require only…
We describe observations in the nearby universe (<100 Mpc) with a 10-m or larger space-based telescope having imaging and spectral capabilities in the range 912-9000 \AA that would enable advances in the fields of massive stars, young…
Despite the success of our best models in Theoretical Physics, especially concerning Cosmology and Particle Physics, we still face persistent challenges. Among them we have the cosmological singularity problem, understanding the late-time…
The flat matter dominated Universe that dominated cosmological model building for much of the past 20 years does not correspond to the Universe in which we live. This has profound implications both for our understanding of dark matter, and…
Recent X-ray observations have had a major impact on topics ranging from protostars to cosmology. They have also drawn attention to important and general physical processes that currently limit our understanding of thermal and nonthermal…
We present a collection of new, open-source computational tools for numerically modeling recent large-scale observational data sets using modern cosmology theory. Specifically, these tools will allow both students and researchers to…