Related papers: Cosmology 1996
We study cosmological solutions for the very early universe beginning at the Planck scale for a universe containing radiation, curvature and, as a simplification of a possible scalar field potential, a cosmological constant term. The…
In the century since Einstein's anno mirabilis of 1905, our concept of the Universe has expanded from Kapteyn's flattened disk of stars only 10 kpc across to an observed horizon about 30 Gpc across that is only a tiny fraction of an…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…
Perhaps the deepest mystery of our accelerating Universe in expansion is the existence of a tiny and rigid cosmological constant, $\Lambda$. Its size is many orders of magnitude below the expected one in the standard model of particle…
We have considered a cosmological model with a phenomenological model for the cosmological constant of the form $\Lambda=\bt\fr{\ddot R}{R}$, $ \bt$ is a constant. For age parameter consistent with observational data the Universe must be…
A general overview of the history and present status of inflationary cosmology is given. Recent developments discussed in this paper include the hybrid inflation scenario, the theory of reheating, and the theory of inflating tolopogical…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
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…
In the standard model of cosmology, the Universe began its expansion with an anomalously low entropy, which then grew dramatically to much larger values consistent with the physical conditions at decoupling, roughly 380,000 years after the…
Combining intervals of ekpyrotic (ultra-slow) contraction with a (non-singular) classical bounce naturally leads to a novel cyclic theory of the universe in which the Hubble parameter, energy density and temperature oscillate periodically,…
Universe history in $R^2$-gravity is studied from "beginning" up to the present epoch. It is assumed that initially the curvature scalar $R$ was sufficiently large to induce the proper duration of inflation. Gravitational particle…
The hypothesis that the Universe underwent a period of exponential expansion at very early times has become the most popular theory of the early Universe. Not only does it solve some of the problems of standard big bang cosmology, but it…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
New, large, ground and space telescopes are contributing to an exciting and rapid period of growth in observational cosmology. The subject is now far from its earlier days of being data-starved and unconstrained, and new data are fueling a…
The Hubble law, determined from the distance modulii and redshifts of galaxies, for the past 80 years, has been used as strong evidence for an expanding universe. This claim is reviewed in light of the claimed lack of necessary evidence for…
Motivated by inflation, the theory of big-bang nucleosynthesis and the quest for a deeper understanding of the fundamental forces and particles, a very successful paradigm for the development of structure in the Universe has evolved. It…
In this review I briefly describe the evolution of the inflationary theory from the scenario based on the idea of supercooling and expansion in the false vacuum toward the theory of eternally expanding self-reproducing inflationary…
We argue that standard tools of holography can be used to describe fully non-perturbative microscopic models of cosmology in which a period of accelerated expansion may result from the positive potential energy of time-dependent scalar…
One of the main challenges in cosmology is to quantify how small density fluctuations at the recombination epoch z around 1000 evolved into the galaxies and the large-scale structure we observe in the universe today. This thesis discusses…
I give a general review of the history of inflationary cosmology and of its present status.