Related papers: Reconstructing the cosmological puzzle
Unless there is evidence for fractal scaling with a single exponent over distances .1 <= r <= 100 h^-1 Mpc then the widely accepted notion of scale invariance of the correlation integral for .1 <= r <= 10 h^-1 Mpc must be questioned. The…
Timescales in astronomy comprise the largest range of any scientific discipline. In the construction of physical models, this circumstance may both be a blessing and a curse. For example, galaxy evolution occurs on typical timescales of…
We discuss some of the basic implications of recent results on galaxy correlations published by the SDSS collaboration. In particular we focus on the evidence which has been recently presented for the scale and nature of the transition to…
Astronomical observations reveal hierarchical structures in the Universe, from galaxies, groups of galaxies, clusters and superclusters, to filaments and voids. On the largest scales it seems that some kind of statistical homogeneity can be…
We apply the scale-length method to several three dimensional samples of the Two degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey. This method allows us to map in a quantitative and powerful way large scale structures in the distribution of galaxies…
The $\Lambda$CDM model, or concordance cosmology, as it is often called, is a paradigm at its maturity. It is clearly able to describe the universe at large scale, even if some issues remain open, such as the cosmological constant problem ,…
A wide range of large scale observations hint towards possible modifications on the standard cosmological model which is based on a homogeneous and isotropic universe with a small cosmological constant and matter. These observations, also…
Galaxies are not uniformly distributed in space. On large scales the Universe displays coherent structure, with galaxies residing in groups and clusters on scales of ~1-3 Mpc/h, which lie at the intersections of long filaments of galaxies…
Studies of disordered heterogeneous media and galaxy cosmology share a common goal: analyzing the distribution of particles at `microscales' to predict physical properties at `macroscales', whether for a liquid, composite material, or…
Structure occurs over a vast range of scales in the universe. Our large-scale cosmological models are coarse-grained representations of what exists, which have much less structure than there really is. An important problem for cosmology is…
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…
Cosmological models often contain scalar fields, which can acquire global nonzero expectation values that change with the comoving time. Among the possible consequences of these scalar-field backgrounds, an accelerated cosmological…
By means of high-resolution N-body simulations in a LambdaCDM cosmology, we verify that scaling relations similar to those observed for nearby galaxy clusters are also defined by their dark matter hosts; the slopes, however, are not the…
New measurements of galaxy clustering and background radiations provide improved constraints on the isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe on large scales. In particular, the angular distribution of radio sources and the X-Ray Background…
In the past several decades, multiple cosmological theories that are based on the contention that the Universe has a major axis have been proposed. Such theories can be based on the geometry of the Universe, or multiverse theories such as…
In this study, we probe the cosmic homogeneity with the BOSS CMASS galaxy sample in the redshift region of $0.43 < z < 0.7$. We use the normalised counts-in-spheres estimator $\mathcal{N}(<r)$ and the fractal correlation dimension…
From the principles of quantum cosmologies we can justify the reason for an inverse-square law for the cosmological constant with no conflict with observations. Although this general expression for $\Lambda$ is well known in the literature,…
The averaging problem in cosmology is of considerable importance for the correct interpretation of cosmological data. We review cosmological observations and discuss some of the issues regarding averaging. We present a precise definition of…
A scale-dependent cosmology is proposed in which the Robertson-Walker metric and the Einstein equation are modified in such a way that $\Omega_0$, $H_0$ and the age of the Universe all become scale-dependent. Its implications on the…
In an undulant universe, cosmic expansion is characterized by alternating periods of acceleration and deceleration. We examine cosmologies in which the dark-energy equation of state varies periodically with the number of e-foldings of the…