Related papers: Seeing Darkness: the New Cosmology
Observational data for type Ia supernovae, shows that the expansion of the universe is accelerated. This accelerated expansion can be described by a cosmological constant or by dark energy models like quintessence. An interesting question…
I review the use of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) for cosmological distance determinations. Low-redshift SNe Ia (z <~ 0.1) demonstrate that the Hubble expansion is linear, that H_0 = 65 +/- 2 (statistical) km/s/Mpc, and that the properties of…
Probing the speed of light is as an important test of General Relativity but the measurements of $c$ using objects in the distant universe have been almost completely unexplored. In this letter, we propose an idea to use the multiple…
I consider the relation of explanations for the observed data to testability in the following contexts: observational and experimental detection of dark matter; observational and experimental detection of dark energy or a cosmological…
We have observed the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. To explain this phenomenon, we usually introduce the dark energy (DE) which has a negative pressure or we need to modify the Einstein's equation to produce a term which is…
The standard cosmological model is based on general relativity and includes dark matter and dark energy. An important prediction of this model is a fixed relationship between the gravitational potentials responsible for gravitational…
After exactly a century since the formulation of the general theory of relativity, the phenomenon of gravitational lensing is still an extremely powerful method for investigating in astrophysics and cosmology. Indeed, it is adopted to study…
Due to their high luminosity at maximum and degree of homogeneity, Type Ia supernovae have been extensively used for cosmological purpouses, in particular to estimate extragalactic distances and the Hubble constant. Recently the number of…
In the upcoming decade cadenced wide-field imaging surveys will increase the number of identified $z<0.3$ Type~Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) from the hundreds to the hundreds of thousands. The increase in the number density and solid-angle…
The acceleration of the expansion of the universe arises from unknown physical processes involving either new fields in high energy physics or modifications of gravitation theory. It is crucial for our understanding to characterize the…
In the late 1990s, observations of type Ia supernovae led to the astounding discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. The explanation of this anomalous acceleration has been one of the great problems in physics since…
The distance-redshift relation observed for supernovae has led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. A next generation experiment, the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP), can investigate the nature of the…
The accelerated expansion of the Universe remains one of the central open problems in modern cosmology. While the $\Lambda$CDM model successfully describes a wide range of observations, the physical nature of dark energy is still unknown,…
In this contribution to the conference "Beyond Einstein: Historical Perspectives on Geometry, Gravitation and Cosmology in the Twentieth Century", we give a critical status report of attempts to explain the late accelerated expansion of the…
The discovery that we live in an accelerating universe changed drastically the paradigm of physics and introduced the concept of \textit{dark energy}. In this work, we present a brief historical description of the main events related to the…
The currently available cosmological data yield, as a most striking result, that the expansion rate of the universe seems to be increasing at late times, contrary to the standard (zero cosmological constant) FLRW prediction. The usual…
Observations of high redshift type Ia supernovae (SNe) will enable us to probe the structure of galaxy halos and the composition of dark matter. The future prospects for this field are briefly discussed here. First the ability of SN…
It is shown that the recently detected acceleration of the universe can be understood by considering a modification of the teleparallel equivalent of General Relativity (TEGR), with no need of dark energy. The solution also exhibits phases…
We investigate the potential of a future supernova dataset, as might be obtained by the proposed SNAP satellite, to discriminate among different ``dark energy'' theories that describe an accelerating Universe. We find that many such models…
Nerd abstract: Observational constraints on spacetime are reviewed, focusing on how the underlying physics (dark matter, dark energy, gravity) can be tested rather than assumed. Popular abstract: Space is not a boring static stage on which…