Related papers: Scars on the CBR?
Recent cosmological observations, such as the measurement of the primordial 4He abundance, CMB, and large scale structure, give preference to the existence of extra radiation component, Delta N_nu > 0. The extra radiation may be accounted…
In an earlier paper we had pointed out that Quantum Mechanical type effects are seen at different scales in the macro universe also. In this paper we obtain a rationale for this, which lies in the picture of bound material systems, spanning…
Progenitor stars of long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could be surrounded by a significant and complex nebula structure lying at a parsec scale distance. After the initial release of energy from the GRB jet, the jet will interact with this…
The dark-matter candidates of particle physics invariably possess electromagnetic interactions, if only via quantum fluctuations. Taken en masse, dark matter can thus engender an index of refraction which deviates from its vacuum value. Its…
We perceive the world through images formed by scattering. The ability to interpret scattering data mathematically has opened to our scrutiny the constituents of matter, the building blocks of life, and the remotest corners of the universe.…
Cosmological models which predict a large amount of antimatter in the Universe are reviewed. Observational signatures and searches for cosmic antimatter are briefly considered. A short discussion of new long range forces which might be…
The coupling of photons and baryons by Thomson scattering in the early universe imprints features in both the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and matter power spectra. The former have been used to constrain a host of cosmological…
Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) represents one of the earliest phenomena that can lead to observational constraints on the early Universe properties. It is well-known that many important mechanisms and phase transitions occurred before BBN.…
In a universe reionized in patches, the Doppler effect from Thomson scattering off free electrons generates secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. For a simple model with small patches and late reionization, we…
A model is presented where there exists another U(1) gauge group which is extremely weakly coupled to that of QED except inside the core of domain walls. It is possible to choose parameters such that standard model photons crossing such a…
The origin of astrophysical magnetic fields observed in galaxies and clusters of galaxies is still unclear. One possibility is that primordial magnetic fields generated in the early Universe provide seeds that grow through compression and…
Theories of dark matter that support bound states are an intriguing possibility for the identity of the missing mass of the Universe. This article proposes a class of models of supersymmetric composite dark matter where the interactions…
We investigate the idea that the universe before the Big Bang is the $CPT$ reflection of the universe after the bang, both classically and quantum mechanically, so that the universe does {\it not} spontaneously violate $CPT$. We show how…
The universe would have been completely dark between the epoch of recombination and the development of the first non-linear structure. But at redshifts beyond 5 -- perhaps even beyond 20 -- stars formed within `subgalaxies' and created the…
About 80\% of the mass of the present Universe is made up of the unknown (dark matter), while the rest is made up of ordinary matter. It is a very intriguing question why the {\it mass} densities of dark matter and ordinary matter (mainly…
(Abridged) Present cosmological constraints and the absence of a direct detection and identification of any dark matter particle candidate leave room to the possibility that the dark sector of the Universe be actually more complex than it…
It has been long discussed that cosmic rays may contain signals of dark matter. In the last couple of years an anomaly of cosmic-ray positrons has drawn a lot of attentions, and recently an excess in cosmic-ray anti-proton has been reported…
Using a high resolution cosmological simulation of reionization we have examined the differing structures formed by gas and dark matter at a redshift of 5.1. Baryon-rich regions form a small number of filaments, which connect the largest…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate in compact remnants (black holes or neutron stars) of massive stars. Their high luminosities make them detectable out to the edge of the visible universe. We describe the many advantages of…
An elegantly symmetric Universe, consisting of large islands of matter and antimatter, is by no means obviously out of the question. I review the observations that lead to the usual prejudice that the Universe contains only matter. I…