Generation of Cosmological Large-Scale Structure


Book Description

This volwne is the proceedings of the third school in particle astrophysics that Schramm and Galeotti have organized at Erice. The focus of thirs third school was the Generation of Cosmological Large-Scale Structure. It was held in November of 1996. The fIrst school in the series was on "Gauge Theory and the Early Universe" in May 1986, the second was on "Dark Matter in the Universe" in May 1988. All three schools have been successful under the auspices of the NATO Advanced Study Institute. This volume is thus the third in the series of the proceedings of these schools. The choice of the topic for this third school was natural, since the problem of generating a large-scale structure has become the most pressing problem in cosmology today. In particular, it is this generation of structure that is the interface between astronomical observations and particle models for the early universe. To date, all models for generating structures inevitably require new fundamental physics beyond the standard, SU x SU X U , model of high energy physics. The 3 2 I seeds for generating structures usually invoke unifIcation physics, and the matter needed to clump and form them seems to require particle properties that have not been seen in laboratories to date.







The Cold Universe


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Multiwavelength Cosmology


Book Description

The recent scientific efforts in Astrophysics & Cosmology have brought a revolution to our understanding of the Cosmos. Amazing results is the outcome of amazing experiments! The huge scientific, technological & financial effort that has gone into building the 10-m class telescopes as well as many space and balloon observatories, essential to observe the multitude of cosmic phenomena in their manifestations at different wavelengths, from gamma-rays to the millimetre and the radio, has given and is still giving its fruits of knowledge. These recent scientific achievements in Observational and Theoretical Cosmology were presented in the "Multiwavelength Cosmology" conference that took place on beautiful Mykonos island in the Aegean between 17 and 20 June 2003. More than 180 Cosmologists from all over the world gathered for a four-day intense meeting in which recent results from large ground based surveys (AAT/2-df, SLOAN) and space missions (WMAP, Chandra, XMM, ISO, HST) were presented and debated, providing a huge impetus to our knowledge of the Cosmos. The future of the subject (experiments, and directions of research) was also discussed. The conference was devoted mostly on the constraints on Cosmological models and galaxy formation theories that arise from the study of the high redshift Universe, from clusters of galaxies, and their evolution, from the cosmic microwave background, the large-scale structure and star-formation history.




Questions of Modern Cosmology


Book Description

Are we living in the "golden age" of cosmology? Are we close to understanding the nature of the unknown ingredients of the currently most accepted cosmological model and the physics of the early Universe? Or are we instead approaching a paradigm shift? What is dark matter and does it exist? How is it distributed around galaxies and clusters? Is the scientific community open to alternative ideas that may prompt a new scientific revolution - as the Copernican revolution did in Galileo's time? Do other types of supernovae exist that can be of interest for cosmology? Why have quasars never been effectively used as standard candles? Can you tell us about the scientific adventure of COBE? How does the extraction of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy depend on the subtraction of the various astrophysical foregrounds? These, among many others, are the astrophysical, philosophical and sociological questions surrounding modern cosmology and the scientific community that Mauro D'Onofrio and Carlo Burigana pose to some of the most prominent cosmologists of our time. Triggered by these questions and in the spirit of Galileo's book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" the roughly 40 interview partners reply in the form of essays, with a critical frankness not normally found in reviews, monographs or textbooks.




Third Paris Cosmology Colloquium - Proceedings Of The Third Paris Cosmology Colloquium Within The Framework Of The International School Of Astrophysics


Book Description

The purpose of this meeting was to cover selected topics of high current interest in the interplay between cosmology and fundamental physics. It brought together physicists, astrophysicists and astronomers and allowed easy and fruitful mutual contacts and communication among them. Topics covered this year include: phase transitions in cosmology and evolution out of the equilibrium of quantum fields, fundamental strings and cosmic strings in cosmology, dark matter and large scale structure, black holes and quantum gravity.




ISO Surveys of a Dusty Universe


Book Description

Many of the ISO observers who assembled for this workshop at Ringberg c- tle met for the third time in the Bavarian Alps. At two previous meetings in 1989 and 1990 surveys were only a minor topic. At that time we were excited by the discoveries of the IRAS survey mission and wanted to follow it up with pointed observations using an observatory telescope equipped with versatile instruments. With the rapid development of detector arrays and stimulated by ISO’s Observing Time Allocation Committee, however, surveys eventually became an issue for the upcoming mission. In a review paper on “Infrared S- veys - the Golden Age of Exploration” given at an IAU meeting in 1996, Chas Beichman already mentioned that there are ISO surveys. They were at the bottom of his hit list, while the winners were future space missions (Planck, SIRTF, etc. ) and ground-based surveys in preparation (Sloan, 2MASS, DE- NIS, etc. ). He organized his table according to the relative explorable volume, calculated from the solid angle covered on the sky and the maximum distance derived from the detection sensitivity. Clearly, with this ?gure of merit, ISO, as a pointed observatory, is rated low. Applying the classical de?nition of a survey, i. e. to search in as large a volume as possible for new or rare objects and/or study large numbers of objects of various classes in order to obtain statistical properties, ISO was indeed limited.




Phase Transitions in the Early Universe: Theory and Observations


Book Description

A fundamental, profound review of the key issues relating to the early universe and the physical processes that occurred in it. The interplay between cosmic microwave background radiation, large scale structure, and the dark matter problem are stressed, with a central focus on the crucial issue of the phase transitions in the early universe and their observable consequences: baryon symmetry, baryogenesis and cosmological fluctuations. There is an interplay between cosmology, statistical physics and particle physics in studying these problems, both at the theoretical and the experimental / observational levels. Special contributions are devoted to primordial and astrophysical black holes and to high energy cosmic rays and neutrino astrophysics. There is also a special section devoted to the International Space Station and its scientific utilization.