Related papers: Cosmology Solved? Maybe
Cold Dark Matter (CDM) has become the standard modern theory of cosmological structure formation. Its predictions appear to be in good agreement with data on large scales, and it naturally accounts for many properties of galaxies. But…
In light of the recent observational data coming from the sky we have two significant directions in the field of theoretical cosmology recently. First, we are now able to make use of present observations, such as the Planck and BICEP2 data,…
This lecture course covers cosmology from the particle physicist perspective. Therefore, the emphasis will be on the evidence for the new physics in cosmological and astrophysical data together with minimal theoretical frameworks needed to…
Alan Guth introduced cosmologists to inflation at the 1980 Texas Symposium. Since, inflation has had almost as much impact on cosmology as the big-bang model itself. However, unlike the big-bang model, it has little observational support.…
In order to account for the observable Universe, any comprehensive theory or model of cosmology must draw from many disciplines of physics, including gauge theories of strong and weak interactions, the hydrodynamics and microphysics of…
The standard model of cosmology relies on the existence of two components, "dark matter" and "dark energy", which dominate the expansion of the Universe. There is no direct proof of their existence, and their nature is still unknown. Many…
Questions such as whether we live in a spatially finite universe, and what its shape and size may be, are among the fundamental open problems that high precision modern cosmology needs to resolve. These questions go beyond the scope of…
For more than a half century cosmologists have been guided by the assumption that matter is distributed homogeneously on sufficiently large scales. On the other hand, observations have consistently yielded evidence for inhomogeneity in the…
Observational Cosmology has indeed made very rapid progress in recent years. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more…
(Abridged) Cosmology faces three distinct challenges in the next decade. (1) The dark sector, both dark matter and dark energy, dominates the Universe. Key questions include determining the nature of both. Improved observational probes are…
Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed at…
WMAP and Planck open the way to unprecedented Big Bang phenomenology, potentially allowing to test the standard Big Bang model as well as less conventional approaches including noncyclic pre-Big Bang cosmologies that would incorporate a new…
I review some theoretical ideas in cosmology different from the standard "Big Bang": the quasi-steady state model, the plasma cosmology model, non-cosmological redshifts, alternatives to non-baryonic dark matter and/or dark energy, and…
This is the dawning of the age of precision cosmology, when all the important parameters will be established to one significant figure or better, within the cosmological model. In the age of accurate cosmology the model, which nowadays…
Astrophysics and cosmology can be used to test the standard model of particle physics under conditions and over distance and time scales not accessible to laboratory experiments. Most of the astrophysical observations are in good agreement…
A huge amount of good quality 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 Cosmology. Despite…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
Certain results of observational cosmology cast critical doubt on the foundations of standard cosmology but leave most cosmologists untroubled. Alternative cosmological models that differ from the Big Bang have been published and defended…
The $\Lambda$-CDM model of cosmology has done much to clarify our picture of the early universe. However, there are still some questions that $\Lambda$-CDM does not necessarily answer; questions such as what is the fundamental nature of…
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…