Related papers: Cosmological Perturbations seeded by Topological D…
Despite its great successes in accounting for the current observations, the so called `standard' model of cosmology faces a number of fundamental unresolved questions. Paramount among these are those relating to the nature of the origin of…
A phenomenological model of an ideal fluid with a scalar charge is formulated, on the basis of which a model with a neutral fluid and a vacuum-field model with rules of transition between them are constructed. A qualitative analysis of the…
We present an approach to cosmological perturbations based on a covariant perturbative expansion between two worldlines in the real inhomogeneous universe. As an application, at an arbitrary order we define an exact scalar quantity which…
We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a contracting universe. We aim to determine under which conditions density perturbations grow to form large inhomogeneities and collapse into black holes. Our method consists in…
The language and methods of algebraic topology, particularly homotopy theory, have been extensively used in the study of the identification, the classification and the evolution of defects. Topological methods provide the means for the…
The apparent accelerating expansion of the Universe is forcing us to examine the foundational aspects of the standard model of cosmology -- in particular, the fact that dark energy is a direct consequence of the homogeneity assumption. We…
The standard big bang cosmology has been greatly successful in explaining many observational aspects of the real universe. However, two particular diffficulties faced by it are the so-called ``horizon'' and ``flatness'' problems. By…
We derive the equations of motion for scalar metric perturbations in a particular nonsingular bouncing cosmology, where the big bang singularity is replaced by a spacetime defect with a degenerate metric. The adiabatic perturbation solution…
We consider the most general primordial cosmological perturbation in a universe filled with photons, baryons, neutrinos, and a hypothetical cold dark matter (CDM) component within the framework of linearized perturbation theory. We give a…
We describe energy--momentum conservation in relativistic perturbation theory in general FRW backgrounds with causal source terms, such as the presence of cosmic defect networks. We provide a prescription for a linear energy--momentum…
A linear cosmological perturbation theory of an almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid Universe with dynamically evolving Newton constant $G$ and cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is presented. A gauge-invariant formalism is developed…
We derive the basic equations of the cosmological first-order post-Newtonian approximation from the recently formulated fully nonlinear and exact cosmological perturbation theory in Einstein's gravity. Apparently the latter, being exact,…
Much of modern cosmology relies on the Cosmological Principle, the assumption that the Universe is isotropic and homogeneous on sufficiently large scales, but it remains worthwhile to examine cosmological models that violate this principle…
There is something missing in our understanding of the origin of the seeds of Cosmic Structuture. The fact that the fluctuation spectrum can be extracted from the inflationary scenario through an analysis that involves quantum field theory…
We analyze the evolution of cosmological perturbations in the cyclic model, paying particular attention to their behavior and interplay over multiple cycles. Our key results are: (1) galaxies and large scale structure present in one cycle…
Structure formation with topological defects is described. The main differences from inflationary models are highlighted. The results are compared with recent observations. It is concluded that all the defect models studied so far are in…
Motion equations describing streams of relativistic particles and their properties are explored in detail in the framework of Cosmological Perturbation Theory. Those equations, derived in any metric both in the linear and nonlinear regimes,…
Gravitation is described in the context of a dilatonic theory that is conformally related to general relativity. All dimensionless ratios of fundamental dimensional quantities, e.g. particle masses and the Planck mass, as well as the…
In these lectures, I review cosmological phase transitions and the topological aspects of spontaneous symmetry breaking. I then discuss the formation of walls, strings and monopoles during phase transitions including lattice based studies…
Adiabatic modes are cosmological perturbations that are locally indistinguishable from a (large) change of coordinates. At the classical level, they provide model independent solutions. At the quantum level, they lead to soft theorems for…