Related papers: Advanced Topics in Cosmology: A Pedagogical Introd…
These lectures were addressed to nonspecialists willing to learn some basic facts, approaches, tools and observational evidence which conform modern cosmology. The aim is also to try to complement the many excellent treatises that exists on…
In this lecture, after a synthetic review of measurements of CMB temperature anisotropies and of their cosmological implications, the theoretical background of CMB polarization is summarized and the concepts of the main experiments that are…
Understanding the properties of dark matter has proved to be one of the most challenging problems of particle phenomenology. In this paper, we have tried to understand the phenomenology of dark matter in light of very well understood…
Cosmology as an exact physical science is of new date, but it has long roots in the past. This essay is concerned with four important themes in the history of cosmological thought which, if taken together, offer a fairly comprehensive…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
Astrophysical observations provide the best evidence of physics beyond the particle physicists' standard model. Over the past decade, the case has solidified for inflation, dark energy, dark matter and massive neutrinos. In this report we…
In this review I consider several different issues related to inflation. I will begin with the wave function of the Universe. This issue is pretty old, but recently there were some new insights based on the theory of the self-reproducing…
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…
It has been recently proposed that gravity might be an entropic force. Although a well defined fundamental description for such a mechanism is still lacking, it is still possible to address the viability of phenomenological models of…
This thesis is centered on three main subjects within the theory of inflation and cosmological perturbations: loop corrections to the power spectrum of curvature fluctuations generated during inflation; evolution of cosmological…
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…
I review the current status of Big Bang Cosmology, with emphasis on current issues in dark matter, dark energy, and galaxy formation. These topics motivate many of the current goals of experimental cosmology which range from targeting the…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
In the first part of this work, I review the theoretical framework of cosmological perturbation theory necessary to understand the generation and evolution of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. Using analytical and numerical…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides us with our most direct observational window to the early universe. Observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB have played a critical role in defining the…
The standard inflationary model presents a simple scenario within which the homogeneity, isotropy and flatness of the universe appear as natural outcomes and, in addition, fluctuations in the energy density are originated during the…
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…
These notes present an introduction to $\Lambda$CDM cosmology and its possible inflationary precursor, with an emphasis on some of the ways effective field theories are used in its analysis. The intended audience are graduate students in…
We provide a pedagogical overview of defect models of structure formation. We first introduce the concept of topological defect, and describe how to classify them. We then show how defects might be produced in phase transitions in the Early…
It is commonly believed that our Universe has experienced two different stages of accelerated expansion. The early stage is known as inflation and the current acceleration is driven by dark energy. Observing inflation and dark energy…