Related papers: Cosmology Update 1998
Modern observations based on general relativity indicate that the spatial geometry of the expanding, large-scale Universe is very nearly Euclidean. This basic empirical fact is at the core of the so-called "flatness problem", which is…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
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…
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…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
Dark matter is a fundamental constituent of the universe, which is needed to explain a wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations. Although the existence of dark matter was first postulated nearly a century ago and its…
These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure…
In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a…
A cosmological model with total density close to critical (and flat geometry), dominated by dark matter and dark energy of unknown nature, and consistent with the basic predictions of the inflationary scenario is a very good fit to a…
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…
An elementary survey of mathematical cosmology is presented. We cover certain key ideas and developments in a qualitative way, from the time of the Einstein static universe in 1917 until today. We divide our presentation into four main…
During the last three decades, there has been a growing realization among physicists and cosmologists that the relation between particle physics and cosmology may constitute yet another successful example of the unity of science. However,…
The present paradigm in cosmology is the usual Big-Bang Cosmology in which two stages of accelerated expansion are incorporated: the inflationary phase in the very early universe which produces the classical inhomogeneities observed in the…
Before the establishment of the hot Big Bang scenario as the modern paradigm of cosmology, it faced several early competitors : the so-called stationary cosmological models. There were truly plural and independent approaches incorporating…
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 current standard model of cosmology, the LambdaCDM model, is based on the homogeneous FLRW solutions of the Einstein equations to which some perturbations are added to account for the CMB features and structure formation at large…
We consider the cosmological application of a (variant of) relatively newly proposed model \cite{1609.06915} unifying inflation, dark energy, dark matter, and the Higgs mechanism. The model was originally defined using additional…
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…
In this talk we discuss three different issues. First of all, there exist several proposals how to solve cosmological problems by adiabatic expansion of the Universe, without any use of inflation. We explain why these models do not solve…
The traditional "explanation" for the observed acceleration of the universe is the existence of a positive cosmological constant. However, this can hardly be a truly convincing explanation, as an expanding universe is not expected to have a…