Related papers: All Universes Great and Small
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
What is the shape of the Universe? Is it finite or infinite ? Is space multi-connected to create ghost images of faraway cosmic sources? After a "dark age" period, the field of cosmic topology has now become one of the major concerns in…
We introduce a new covering property, defined in terms of order types of sequences of open sets, rather than in terms of cardinalities of families. The most general form of this compactness notion depends on two ordinal parameters. In the…
Exact solutions for a model with variable $G$, $\Lambda$ and bulk viscosity are obtained. Inflationary solutions with constant (de Sitter-type) and variable energy density are found. An expanding anisotropic universe is found to isotropize…
Recent high precision data by WMAP and SDSS have provided strong evidence to suggest that the universe is nearly flat. They are also making it possible to probe the topology of the universe. Motivated by these results, we have recently…
The universe we observe is homogeneous on super-horizon scales, leading to the ``cosmic homogeneity problem''. Inflation alleviates this problem but cannot solve it within the realm of conservative extrapolations of classical physics. A…
The possibility of obtaining an open set of regular cosmological models is discussed. Cylindrical stiff perfect fluid cosmologies are studied in detail. The condition for geodesic completeness is easy to check. A large family of…
When the density parameter is close to unity, the universe has a large curvature radius independently of its being hyperbolic, flat, or spherical. Whatever the curvature, the universe may have either a simply connected or a multiply…
Astrophysical observations provide a picture of the universe as a 4-dim homogeneous and isotropic flat space-time dominated by an unknown form of dark energy. To achieve such a cosmology one has to consider in the early universe an…
The model of the homogenous and isotropic universe with two spaces is considered. The background space is a coordinate system of reference and defines the behaviour of the universe. The other space characterizes the gravity of the matter of…
Cosmological models arising from a generalized compactification of Einstein gravity are derived. It is shown that a redefinition of the moduli fields reduces the system to a set of massless fields and a single field with a single…
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
Nature abhors an infinity. The limits of general relativity are often signaled by infinities: infinite curvature as in the center of a black hole, the infinite energy of the singular big bang. We might be inclined to add an infinite…
Matter collapsing to a singularity in a gravitational field is still an intriguing question. Similar situation arises when discussing the very early universe or a universe recollapsing to a singularity. It is suggested that inclusion of…
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…
We find universal spaces for Alexandroff and finite spaces and explore some of its topological properties as well as their description as inverse limits of finite spaces and Alexandroff extensions. They can be used as a natural environment…
We look for the necessary conditions allowing the Universe isotropisation in presence of a minimally coupled and massive scalar field with a perfect fluid. We conclude that it arises only when the Universe is scalar field dominated, leading…
Research over the past 25 years has led to the view that the rich tapestry of present-day cosmic structure arose during the first instants of creation, where weak ripples were imposed on the otherwise uniform and rapidly expanding…