Related papers: Large-scale Structure from Quantum Fluctuations in…
Cosmology is very exciting for three reasons. There is a very successful standard model - the hot big bang - which describes the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec onward. There are bold ideas, foremost among them are inflation and…
One of the principal discoveries in modern cosmology is that standard model particles (including baryons, leptons and photons) together comprise only 5% of the mass-energy budget of the Universe. The remaining 95% consists of dark energy…
The COBE results, to be followed in the near future by other Cosmic Microwave Background measurements, are providing us with a new fundamental tool to probe the formation of large scale structure in the Universe, and in so doing to…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
A unified description of inflation, dark energy, and dark matter is presented within a two-scalar-field cosmological model. Inflation, assumed to be of the warm type, is driven by one of the scalar fields, which, shortly after the end of…
The big bang model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories are introduced. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
One hundred years ago we did not know how stars generate energy, the age of the Universe was thought to be only millions of years, and our Milky Way galaxy was the only galaxy known. Today, we know that we live in an evolving and expanding…
Quantum fluctuations endow spacetime with a foamy texture. The degree of foaminess is dictated by blackhole physics to be of the holographic type. Applied to cosmology, the holographic foam model predicts the existence of dark energy with…
After 45 years since the discovery of quantum-gravitational birth of the cosmological density perturbations we can try to answer the main question of cosmology what is the origin of the Universe. This has become possible because the…
The cold dark matter model successfully explains both the emergence and evolution of cosmic structures on large scales and, when we include a cosmological constant, the properties of the homogeneous and isotropic Universe. However, the cold…
Cosmology and astroparticle physics give strongest possible evidence for the incompleteness of the Standard Model of particle physics. Leaving aside misterious dark energy, which may or may not be just the cosmological constant, two…
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…
We present an overview of a recently suggested new model of quantum initial conditions for the Universe in the form of a cosmological density matrix. This density matrix originally suggested in the Euclidean quantum gravity framework turns…
The Universe was nearly smooth and homogeneous before a redshift of z = 100, about 20 million years after the Big Bang. After this epoch, the tiny fluctuations imprinted upon the matter distribution during the initial expansion began to…
In these lectures I highlight some key features of massive neutrinos in the context of cosmology. I first review the thermal history and the free-streaming kinematics of the uniform cosmic background neutrinos. I then describe how…
We show how, by considering the cumulative effect of tiny quantum gravitational fluctuations over very large distances, it may be possible to: ($a$) reconcile nucleosynthesis bounds on the density parameter of the Universe with the…
A standard theoretical paradigm for the formation of large-scale structure in the distribution of galaxies has now been established, based on the gravitational instability of cold dark matter in a background cosmology dominated by vacuum…
While the LCDM framework has been incredibly successful for modern cosmology, it requires the admission of two mysterious substances as a part of the paradigm, dark energy and dark matter. Although this framework adequately explains most of…
Current astronomical observations are successfully explained by the present cosmological paradigm based on the concordance model ($\Lambda_0$CDM + Inflation). However, such a scenario is composed of a heterogeneous mix of ingredients for…