Related papers: Frustrated Expectations: Defect Networks and Dark …
The stability of cosmological event and Cauchy horizons of spacetimes associated with plane symmetric domain walls are studied. It is found that both horizons are not stable against perturbations of null fluids and massless scalar fields;…
Modern astrophysical and cosmological models are faced with two severe theoretical difficulties, that can be summarized as the dark energy and the dark matter problems. Relative to the former, it has been stated that cosmology has entered a…
We perform an updated analysis on a long-lived axion domain wall (DW) network. By simulating the axion field on a 3D lattice and fitting an analytical model for the DW evolution, we identify the leading energy loss mechanisms of the DWs and…
Some dark energy cosmological models are constructed in the framework of a generalised Brans-Dicke theory which contains a self interacting potential and a dynamical coupling parameter. The dark sector of the universe is considered through…
Discrete symmetries are commonplace in field theoretical models but pose a severe problem for cosmology since they lead to the formation of domain walls during spontaneous symmetry breaking in the early universe. However if one of the…
Below scales of about 100/h Mpc our universe displays a complex inhomogeneous structure dominated by voids, with clusters of galaxies in sheets and filaments. The coincidence that cosmic expansion appears to start accelerating at the epoch…
The $\Lambda$CDM framework offers a remarkably good description of our universe with a very small number of free parameters, which can be determined with high accuracy from currently available data. However, this does not mean that the…
A highly degenerate family of states [proposed in PRB 63, 134503 (2001)] is proven to really minimize the Hamiltonian of the fully frustrated XY model on a dice lattice. The harmonic fluctuations are shown to be no consequence for the…
We show that our Universe may be inhomogeneous on large sub-horizon scales without us being able to realise it. We assume that a network of domain walls permeates the universe dividing it in domains with slightly different vacuum energy…
The fact that the LambdaCDM model fits the observations does not necessarily imply the physical existence of `dark energy'. Dropping the assumption that cold dark matter (CDM) is a perfect fluid opens the possibility to fit the data without…
A huge amount of good quality astrophysical data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision…
Associated with the cosmic acceleration are the old and new cosmological constant problems, recently put into the more general context of the dark energy problem. In broad terms, the old problem is related to an unexpected order of…
In this paper, we study the possibility of obtaining a stable flat dark energy-dominated universe in a good agreement with observations in the framework of Swiss-cheese Brane-world cosmology. Two different Brane-world cosmologies with black…
It is well known that, in the context of general relativity, an unknown kind of matter that must violate the strong energy condition is required to explain the current accelerated phase of expansion of the Universe. This unknown component…
We argue that, for generic string compactifications, dark energy is likely to signal the beginning of the end of our universe, perhaps even through decompactification, with possible implications for the cosmological coincidence problem.…
In this paper, we attempt to explore the possibility of a obtaining a viable emergent universe scenario supported by a type of fluid known as the extended Chaplygin gas, which extends a modification to the equation of state of the well…
Cosmic acceleration is widely believed to require either a source of negative pressure (i.e., dark energy), or a modification of gravity, which necessarily implies new degrees of freedom beyond those of Einstein gravity. In this paper we…
It is extraordinary that a number of observations indicate that we live in a spatially flat, low matter density Universe, which is currently undergoing a period of accelerating expansion. The effort to explain this current state has focused…
In this article, we investigate the existence of accelerating scaling solutions in coupled phantom cosmology without assuming any specific potential for the phantom scalar field. The coupling between phantom dark energy and dark matter is…
Perhaps the greatest challenge for fundamental theories based on compactification from extra dimensions is accommodating a period of accelerated cosmological expansion. Previous studies have identified constraints imposed by the existence…