Related papers: The Cosmology of Fluctuations
Observational cosmology is in its "golden age" with a vast amount of recent data on the distribution of matter and light in the universe. This data can be used to probe theories of the very early universe. It is small amplitude cosmological…
We review the status of bouncing cosmologies as alternatives to cosmological inflation for providing a description of the very early universe, and a source for the cosmological perturbations which are observed today. We focus on the…
The early universe provides an opportunity for quantum gravity to connect to observation by explaining the large-scale structure of the Universe. In the group field theory (GFT) approach, a macroscopic universe is described as a GFT…
The mechanism of production of a large number of universes is considered. It is shown that universes with parameters suitable for creation of life are necessarily produced as a result of quantum fluctuations. Fractal structures are formed…
The possibility that the universe may have a fundamental and positive cosmological constant has motivated an interesting cosmological model, in which initially the universe is in a cosmological constant sea, then the local quantum…
Perhaps standard effective field theory arguments are right, and vacuum fluctuations really do generate a huge cosmological constant. I show that if one does not assume homogeneity and an arrow of time at the Planck scale, a very large…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
Modern cosmology has created a tight link between particle physics / field theory and a wealth of new observational data on the structure of the Universe. These lecture notes focus on some of the most important aspects concerning the…
The value of the cosmological constant is one of the major puzzles of modern cosmology: it is tiny but nonzero. Sorkin predicted, from the Causet approach to quantum gravity, that the cosmological constant has quantum fluctuations. The…
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…
Inaba recently used a simple model to suggest that Quantum Theory can result from a fluctuation in the cosmos. In this note we confirm this conclusion from a different and more general point of view. We then argue that this provides an…
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
We discuss correlation properties of a general mass density field introducing a classification of structures based on their complexity. Standard cosmological models for primordial mass fluctuations are characterized by a sort of large-scale…
Observational cosmology is on the verge of new discoveries that will change the essence of our world-view. The matter concerns origin of initial conditions and physics of dark matter.
These four lectures cover four topics in modern cosmology: the cosmological constant, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, and cosmology as a probe of physics at the Planck scale. The underlying theme is that cosmology gives us a…
The current understanding of structure formation in the early universe is mainly built on a magnification of quantum fluctuations in an initial vacuum state during an early phase of accelerated universe expansion. One usually describes this…
We address two basic issues in the theory of galaxy formation from fluctuations of quantum fields: 1) the nature and origin of noise and fluctuations and 2) the conditions for using a classical stochastic equation for their description. On…
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,…
A new approach to the phenomenon of large numbers coincidence leads to unexpected results. No matter how strange it might sound, the exact value of cosmological parameters and their analytical expression through fundamental constants have…
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…