The early universe and observational cosmology

Nora Bretón, Jorge L. Cervantes–Cota (auth.), Nora Bretón, Jorge Luis Cervantes-Cota, Marcelo Salgado (eds.)3540218475, 9783540218470

Spectacular experimental advances in observational cosmology have helped raise cosmology to the status of a genuine science, and it is now possible to test many speculative theoretical issues and to obtain reliable values for the key parameters defining our observable universe. This book has emerged from selected lectures given at the Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics by leaders in their field. Conceived as both a broad survey and as topical coverage of the latest developments, it will benefit graduate students and newcomers to this field and provide researchers in the field with a modern source of reference.

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Table of contents :
Introduction….Pages 1-4
An Introduction to Standard Cosmology….Pages 7-51
Inflation – In the Early Universe and Today….Pages 53-107
Cosmic Acceleration, Scalar Fields, and Observations….Pages 109-125
Lectures on the Theory of Cosmological Perturbations….Pages 127-167
Measuring Spacetime: From Big Bang to Black Holes….Pages 169-189
The Accelerating Universe and Dark Energy: Evidence from Type Ia Supernovae….Pages 191-221
Quintessence and Dark Energy….Pages 225-257
Quintessential Inflation at the Maxima of the Potential….Pages 259-271
Quantum Corrections to Scalar Quintessence Potentials….Pages 273-291
Electroweak Baryogenesis and Primordial Hypermagnetic Fields….Pages 293-308
Infering Annihilation Channels of Neutralinos in Galactic Halos….Pages 309-320
Brane World Cosmology….Pages 323-356
Inflation and Braneworlds….Pages 357-379
Creation of Brane Universes….Pages 381-399
The Scalar Field Dark Matter Model: A Braneworld Connection….Pages 401-420
Cosmological Applications of Loop Quantum Gravity….Pages 421-462