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The semi-classical approach to the quantum geometrodynamical model is used for the description of the properties of the universe on extremely small spacetime scales. Quantum theory for a homogeneous, isotropic and closed universe is…
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…
The status of quantum cosmologies as testable models of the early universe is assessed in the context of inflation. While traditional Wheeler-DeWitt quantization is unable to produce sizable effects in the cosmic microwave background, the…
Inflationary theory predicts that the observable Universe should be very close to flat, with a spatial-curvature parameter |Omega_K| < 10^-4. The WMAP satellite currently constrains |Omega_K| < 0.01, and the Planck satellite will be…
The Einstein field equations of general relativity constrain the local curvature at every point in spacetime, but say nothing about the global topology of the Universe. Cosmic microwave background anisotropies have proven to be the most…
The Hilbert-Einstein equations are insufficient to describe the geometry of the Universe, as they only constrain a local geometrical property: curvature. A global knowledge of the geometry of space, if possible, would require measurement of…
The paradigm of \Lambda CDM cosmology works impressively well and with the concept of inflation it explains the universe after the time of decoupling. However there are still a few concerns; after much effort there is no detection of dark…
Volume is a natural measure of complexity of a Riemannian manifold. In this survey, we discuss the results and conjectures concerning n-dimensional hyperbolic manifolds and orbifolds of small volume.
In recent years, the large angle COBE--DMR data have been used to place constraints on the size and shape of certain topologically compact models of the universe. Here we show that this approach does not work for generic compact models. In…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly and indirectly from a large body of observational evidence. The simplest and most theoretically appealing possibility is the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant).…
Several recent observations using standard rulers and standard candles now suggest, either individually or in combination, that the Universe is close to flat, i.e. that the curvature radius is about as large as the horizon radius (\sim…
Big Bang models of the Universe predict rapid domination by curvature, a paradox known as the flatness problem. Solutions to this problem usually leave the Universe exactly flat for every practical purpose. Explaining a nearly but not…
The measurements of CMB anisotropy have opened up a window for probing the global topology of the universe on length scales comparable to and beyond the Hubble radius. For compact topologies, the two main effects on the CMB are: (1) the…
Recent observations of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a `cosmological constant', which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still…
The current expansion of the Universe has been observed to be accelerating, and the widely accepted spatially-flat concordance model of general relativistic cosmology attributes this phenomenon to a constant dark energy, a cosmological…
If inflation can occur only at the energy density V much smaller than the Planck density, which is the case for many inflationary models based on string theory, then the probability of quantum creation of a closed or an infinitely large…
We study the effect of global topology of the spatial geometry on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for closed flat and closed hyperbolic models in which the spatial hypersurface is multiply connected. If the CMB temperature…
We study some observational consequences of a recently proposed scale--dependent cosmological model for an inhomogeneous Universe. In this model the Universe is pictured as being inside a highly dense and rapidly expanding shell with the…
We calculate the CMB anisotropy in compact hyperbolic universe models using the regularized method of images described in paper-I, including the 'line-of-sight `integrated Sachs-Wolfe' effect, as well as the last-scattering surface terms.…
Suppose we have identified three clusters of galaxies as being topological copies of the same object. How does this information constrain the possible models for the shape of our Universe? It is shown here that, if the Universe has flat…