Cosmological Inflation And Large Scale Structure

A thorough and up-to-date graduate textbook on the most promising theory of the universe - inflationary cosmology.

The origin and evolution of the primordial perturbation is the key to understanding structure formation in the earliest stages of the Universe. It carries clues to the types of physical phenomena active in that extreme high-density environment. Through its evolution, generating first the observed cosmic microwave background anisotropies and later the distribution of galaxies and dark matter in the Universe, it probes the properties and dynamics of the present Universe. This graduate-level textbook gives a thorough account of theoretical cosmology and perturbations in the early Universe, describing their observational consequences and showing how to relate such observations to primordial physical processes, particularly cosmological inflation. With ambitious observational programmes complementing ever-increasing sophistication in theoretical modelling, cosmological studies will remain at the cutting edge of astrophysical studies for the foreseeable future.

This book represents the proceedings from the NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop entitled "Observational Tests of Inflation" held at the University of Durham, England on the 10th-14th December, 1990. In recent years, the cosmological inflation model has drawn together the worlds of particle physics, theoretical cosmology and observational astronomy. The aim of the workshop was to bring together experts in all of these fields to discuss the current status of the inflation theory and its observational predictions. The simplest inflation model makes clear predictions which are testable by astronomical observation. Foremost is the prediction that the cosmological density parameter, no, should have a value negligibly different from the critical, Einstein-de Sitter value of 00=1. The other main prediction is that the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations should be Gaussian and take the Harrison-Zeldovich form. The prediction that n =l, in patticular, leads to several important consequences o for cosmology. Firstly, there is the apparent contradiction with the limits on baryon density from Big Bang nucleosynthesis which has led to the common conjecture that weakly interacting particles rather than baryons may form the dominant mass constituent of the Universe. Secondly, with n =l, the age of the Universe is uncomfortably short if o the Hubble constant and the ages of the oldest star clusters lie within their currently believed limits.

The classic account of the structure and evolution of the early universe from Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. J. E. Peebles An instant landmark on its publication, The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe remains the essential introduction to this vital area of research. Written by one of the world's most esteemed theoretical cosmologists, it provides an invaluable historical introduction to the subject, and an enduring overview of key methods, statistical measures, and techniques for dealing with cosmic evolution. With characteristic clarity and insight, P. J. E. Peebles focuses on the largest known structures—galaxy clusters—weighing the empirical evidence of the nature of clustering and the theories of how it evolves in an expanding universe. A must-have reference for students and researchers alike, this edition of The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe introduces a new generation of readers to a classic text in modern cosmology.

A monograph on inflationary cosmology and cosmological phase transitions, investigating modern cosmology's relationship to elementary particle physics. This work also includes a non-technical discussion of inflationary cosmology for those unfamiliar with the theory.

This text provides an up-to-date and pedagogical introduction to this exciting area of research.

Inflation and Quantum Cosmology discusses the inflationary universe scenario, including the problems of the standard big bang theory and the interplay between elementary-particle theory and cosmology. Inflationary universe models generate many different final perturbation spectra. For example, a model of an inflationary universe, through a casual mechanism, can predict energy density fluctuations leading to the formation of galaxies. The inflationary universe scenario makes possible simultaneous solutions to ten problems related to cosmology and elementary particle physics. One problem concerns the origin of density perturbations that show a picture of the large-scale structure of the universe. Some unexplored possibilities are related to isothermal perturbations generated during inflation or to adiabatic perturbations with a non-flat spectrum. An inflationary universe cosmology also includes stochastic inflation that describes the universe on very large scales—from fragmented mini-universes to another inflationary cosmos. The book also discusses the problem relating to the initial conditions from which an inflationary universe starts. This book is suitable for astronomers, astrophysicists, and professors of cosmology and cosmogenesis.

The modern Persian word for cosmology is "Keyhan-shenakht", which is also the title of a Persian book written more than 800 years ago. The same term can also be found in Old Persian. In spite of this old tradition, modern cosmology is a new~omer within the scientific disciplines in Iran. The cosmology community' is small and not yet well established. Given the spectacular recent advances in observational and theoretical cosmology, the large amount of new observational data which will become available in the near future, and the rapid expansion of the international cosmology community, it was realized that Iran should play a more active role in the exciting human endeavour which cosmology constitutes. This was the main motivation to establish a School on Cosmology in Iran. The plan is to hold a cosmology school every three years somewhere in Iran. The focus of this First School on Cosmology was chosen to be structure formation, a rapidly evolving cornerstone of modern cosmology. The topics of the school were selected in order to give both a broad overview of the current status of cosmological structure formation, and an in-depth dis cussion of the key issues theory of cosmological perturbations and analysis of cosmic microwave anisotropies. The lectures by Blanchard and Sarkar give an overview of homogeneous cosmological models and standard big bang cosmology. In his contribution, Padmanabhan presents a comprehen sive discussion of the growth of cosmological perturbations.