Related papers: Geocentrism reexamined
First, we establish which measures of large-scale perturbations are least afflicted by gauge artifacts and directly map the apparent evolution of inhomogeneities to local interactions of cosmological species. Considering nonlinear and…
The breakdown of statistical homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic perturbations is a generic feature of ultra large scale structure of the cosmos, in particular, of non trivial cosmic topology. The statistical isotropy (SI) of the Cosmic…
We describe the implications of cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and galaxy and cluster surveys of large scale structure (LSS) for theories of cosmic structure formation, especially emphasizing the recent Boomerang and Maxima…
Standard models of galaxy formation predict that matter distribution is statistically homogeneous and isotropic and characterized by (i) spatial homogeneity for r<10 Mpc/h, (ii) small-amplitude structures of relatively limited size (i.e.,…
In this paper we study cosmological signatures of modified gravity theories that can be written as a coupling between a extra scalar field and the electromagnetic part of the usual Lagrangian for the matter fields. In these frameworks all…
The Universe is the grandest conceivable scale on which the human mind can strive to understand nature. The amazing aspect of cosmology, the branch of science that attempts to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe, is that it…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which permeates the entire Universe, is the radiation left over from just 380,000 years after the Big Bang. On very large scales, the CMB radiation field is smooth and isotropic, but the existence of…
A new method is proposed for modelling spherically symmetric inhomogeneities in the Universe. The inhomogeneities have finite size and are compensated, so they do not exert any measurable gravitational force beyond their boundary. The…
We impose constraints on the topology of the Universe determined from a search for matched circles in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy patterns of the 7-year WMAP data. We pay special attention to the sensitivity…
It is shown that the homogeneous and isotropic Universe is spatially flat in the limit which takes into account the moments of infinitely large orders of probabilistic distribution of a scale factor with respect to its mean value in the…
This is the obligatory Cosmic Microwave Background review. I discuss the current status of CMB anisotropies, together with some points on the related topic of the Far-Infrared Background. We have already learned a number of important things…
We propose a method to probe the homogeneity of a general universe, without assuming symmetry. We show that isotropy can be tested at remote locations on the past lightcone by comparing the line-of-sight and transverse expansion rates,…
I explain the origin and evolution of anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and argue that upcoming experiments will measure cosmological and fundamental parameters very accurately. Most of the paper focuses on present data,…
The conventional $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model supplemented by the inflation concept describes the Universe very well. However, there are still a few concerns: new Planck data impose constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential,…
Most cosmological models studied today are based on the assumption of homogeneity and isotropy. Observationally one can find evidence that supports these assumptions on very large scales, the strongest being the almost isotropy of the…
Assuming that the cosmological principle holds, Maartens, Ellis and Stoeger (MES) recently constructed a detailed scheme linking anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation (CMB) with anisotropies and inhomogeneities in the large scale…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is characterized by well-established scales, the 2.7 K temperature of the Planckian spectrum and the $10^{-5}$ amplitude of the temperature anisotropy. These features were instrumental in…
We review the theory of the temperature anisotropy and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and describe what we have learned from current CMB observations. In particular, we discuss how the CMB is being used to…
Observers have demonstrated that it is now feasible to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature at high redshifts. We explore the possible constraints on cosmology which might ultimately be derived from such measurements.…
A simple model of uniformly expanding, homogeneous Universe with a bulk viscosity is studied wherein the inflationary density decays due to viscous dissipation during the expansion phase of the Universe. The model is shown to generate the…