Cosmology Definition and 915 Threads

Wondering if there are any online “book clubs” that people read cosmology textbooks together?

I found this article* about the behavior of quasar outflows in cosmology and how they can create a magnetic field. In section 2.1.4., the authors say that when a quasar produces a "wave" or an outflow, the material will be emitted with energy coming from both the quasar itself and the Hubble...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe Is the heat death of the universe completely unavoidable in an universe with an accelerated expansion dominated by dark energy like ours? Or can there be any way to avoid it according to current knowledge, observations and experiments...

In describing the spacetime around a massive, spherical object, one would use the Schwarzschild Metric. What metric would instead be used to describe the spacetime around multiple massive bodies? Say, for example, you want to calculate the Gravitational Time Dilation experienced by a rocket ship...

If energy is "not conserved" in General Relativity (or at least, it is difficult to define it) in the context of an expanding accelerating spacetime (like it happens in our Universe), are there any observations of deviations from the strict conservation laws in the evolution and formation of...

How do we know that cold neutrinos do not make up 100% or a large percentage of the dark matter content in the universe? In my mind, the only way to prove that dark matter is not simply cold neutrinos would be to measure the density of cold neutrinos in the universe and then calculate the...

I found a paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0411299.pdf) which talks about quantum systems emitting energy due to spacetime expansion. Is this true or only a hypothesis?

Hello, I'm an independent researcher in cosmology and working on topics like cosmological redshift, galaxy formation and galaxy cluster dynamics. Came across the forum searching for details about the solar system orientation in the galaxy rotation disk. Very inspired and enthusiastic about the...

Before anything, I would like to clarify that I am aware that this is speculative physics more than established mainstream physics (and Smoot is not claiming that his ideas are true). However I think that it is interesting to discuss these models even if they are not yet proven to be right. I...

Considering the FLWR metric in cartesian coordinates: ##ds^2=-dt^2+a^2(t)(dx^2+dy^2+dz^2)## With ##a(t)=t##, the trace of the extrinsic curvature tensor is ##-3t##. But why is it negative if it's describing an expanding universe, not a contracting one?

[Mentor Note -- thread moved from the schoolwork forums to the technical forums] Homework Statement:: Tentative Note and summary on the origin and the evolution of information in the universe. Relevant Equations:: none As a teacher of physics I got many questions asked by my students when...

Imagine we attach an imaginary cosmological scale rope to an object that is very far away from us. Before attaching the string, the object would be receding from us due to spacetime expansion. After attaching it, tension would form in the string and we would eventually stop the object. After...

I was reading an article by Edward Harrison, which tackles the problems of conservation of energy at cosmological scales. At some point (point 2.4) he cites several article, including one by Rees and Gott, which he says indicates that the internal energy of a comoving volume (e.g. a cosmic...

0:00 Gravitational lensing 23:19 Cosmology 33:00 Robertson-Walker spacetime 38:20 FLRW universe 1:01:35 Big Bang

I know I should not study cosmology from books that are too dated. Can you recommend an up-to-date cosmology book? I am studying GR from Carroll's book. Do I need to study astrophysics first or other topics?

In the ADM decomposition, like in the construction of the FRW metric, the coordinates are defined to be co-moving, so we know $$d\tau = dt$$ (i.e. the lapse function is normalized away) Starting from a five-dimensional embedded hyperboloid (as in carroll pg. 324) ## -u^2 + x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + w^2...

If we insert the values from (2.9), (2.10), (2.11) into (2.5) & (2.6) how can we get (2.13) & (2.14) ?? I need to see the calculations step by step.

I found an article by James Bjorken (https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0210202) which argues that universes with different size would have different physics (like different Standard Model parameters). When applying this reasoning to our own universe, Is this pure conjecture? Or is there some truth...

I know for sure PICO will be measuring polarization anisotropies with high fidelity. In addition, the PICO science paper shows that it will make full-sky Compton-y maps but the plots are mostly limited to l=1000. Will PICO be able to measure kSZ temperature anisotropy at l=3000?

I am trying to understand this graph but I am confused about the distance definitions. So there's an object located at a comoving distance ##r##. The proper distance of the object at ##z'## can be written as $$d(z{'}) = \frac{1}{1+z{'}}\int_0^{z{'}} \frac{dz{'}}{H(z{'})}$$ In this case...

but I could not develop, is it really possible to represent this way?

Greetings everyone, I'm looking for ideas about what areas of math I should do to prepare for a PhD in Cosmology. (So far I have an undergrad math & stats degree). I personally love pure math and view it as a series of puzzles; but somehow cosmology sounds more "applied". Anyway there are so...

Greetings everyone, It's lovely to be here and I decided to join because I thought I might be able to get ideas about what math I should do to prepare for a PhD in Cosmology. (All I have so far is an undergrad math & stats degree). I mean I love pure math and view it as a series of puzzles...

A 1-sphere exists in 2D space. It is a circle in flat space. A 2-sphere is a 1-sphere embedded in 3D space. Its surface is non flat and 2 dimensional. A 3-sphere is a 2-sphere embedded in 4D space. Its surface is non flat and 3 dimensional. What does this last sentence mean in...

It is very amazing help8ng and encouraging forum. I am a research student of MS PHYSICS at COMSATS UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD. I hope this firum will be much helpful to help me finding some tedious numerical solutions of a research paper.

Reference: https://scitechdaily.com/breaking-cosmology-too-many-disk-galaxies-a-significant-discrepancy-between-prediction-and-reality/ The following are quotes from the reference. 1. The Standard Model of Cosmology describes how the universe came into being according to the view of most...

The definition of power spectrum of matter density field is given by eq(1). I have also seen definitions of power spectra given by eq(2) . Does this mean (2\pi^3) has been absorbed in the correlation function? $$P_{xx}(k)=(2\pi^3)\delta(k-k^\prime)<x(k)x(k^\prime)>$$ .. (1)...

I was browsing YouTube (again) and stumbled upon this set of lectures by Ta-Pei Cheng. (I've seen the cover of the textbooks... but I'm not familiar with the author-lecturer or the details of the texts... but this looks interesting.) http://www.umsl.edu/~chengt/...

Hello all! I have been taking an academic break from school for certain mental health reasons that I won't waste your time talking about. Now, I am only a freshman in college. My school's physics department currently offers 2 majors: Physics and Physics/Astronomy. Obviously, I have lots of time...

Hi all, I just graduated from my master's program in theoretical physics. I did 60% of the coursework in high energy physics and rest in condensed matter theory plus a few experimental physics courses. I did my master's thesis in what can be called as theoretical cosmology, studying particle...

$$n_\vec{k} = \omega a^2(\vec{k})\tag{1}$$ One way is to write the inverse Fourier transforms of the terms above. So, eqn (1) becomes $$\int\mathrm{d}^3x\ n(\vec{x})e^{-i\vec{k}\cdot\vec{x}} = \omega \int\mathrm{d}^3x^\prime\ a(\vec{x^\prime})e^{-i\vec{k}\cdot\vec{x^\prime}}...

So. It was late night, the limpid sky a near cloudless darkness, somewhat lightened by the waxing moon. I being somewhat stoned and looking at the stars and constellations as I sometimes do, and it came to seem to me, in my imagination, that In the spaces between the stars, I was observing (in...

I’ve really been struggling with this book since I started it a couple of days ago. It’s essentially a problem book designed to teach you about astrophysics, structure formation, radiation, fluid dynamics, etc. through a curated set of questions. Some of the questions take a ridiculously long...

It is in cosmology context but actually, but it is also a mathematics/statistical issue. From spherical harmonics with Legendre deccomposition, I have the following definition of the standard deviation of a ##C_\ell## noised with a Poisson Noise ##N_p## : ## \begin{equation}...

What is the Compton Drag in cosmology?

I have been studying cosmology, quantum field theory, and inflation all by myself, taking notes, solving the equations, and when I write down my work, it looks like a book. I think of self-publishing it; I believe it could be useful to others interested in the field. However, I am only a...

I know it says Universe is eternal, how does that work with gravity? If all the stars and galaxies had infinite time to attract each other why are they still apart? I guess this is a naïve question because no one talks about it but I can't figure it out. Thank you for answers!

Summary:: A Standard Model for Fantasy Role-Playing? Greetings fellow nerds. I am an amateur when it comes to cosmology. I know little in terms of cosmology beyond what I've seen on documentaries, of which I have watched dozens, if not hundreds. I've read Hyperspace by Michio Kaku and Black...

The number of visible galaxies is to vanish in the long-term future with the ##\Lambda##CDM model (book and papers of L. Krauss et al). I am interested in a quantitative study on how the population of galaxies decreases; I could not find one so I do it myself: The scale factor...

Hello, I would like to know the right expression for the expression of variance of Shot noise in spectroscopic probe. Sometimes, I saw ##\sigma_{SN,sp}^{2} = 1/n_{sp}## with ##n_{sp}## the average density of galaxies, whereas my tutor tells me that ##\sigma_{SN,sp}^{2} = 1/n_{sp}^{2}## , so I...

I cite an original report of a colleague : 1) I can't manage to proove that the statistical error is formulated like : ##\dfrac{\sigma (P (k))}{P(k)} = \sqrt{\dfrac {2}{N_{k} -1}}_{\text{with}} N_{k} \approx 4\pi \left(\dfrac{k}{dk}\right)^{2}## and why it is considered like a relative error ...

Apart from Frank Wilczek, Kip Thorne, and perhaps Gerard 't Hooft, are there any more (living) Nobel laureates in physics who are open to the possibility that multiple universes exist?

I'm currently a fresh grad student in theoretical physics, and I'm still deciding to choose which research group to join. My current understanding (maybe I'm wrong) is the PhD theme pretty much determines the topic for future post-doc research so I kinda need to choose very carefully. I'm...

I was reading recently about string theory recently which postulates that there are 11 dimensions representing all possibilities for everything. This is an interesting theory, although very difficult to prove and therefore somewhat speculative in my opinion. [Ed.: personal speculation removed]...

Good evening, I have a question on a cosmology problem I have solved from Barbara Ryden’s Introduction to Cosmology 2nd Edition. I believe I have answered the question correctly, resulting in the following linear redshift relation when using separation by variables and some algebra manipulation...

This post is slightly different from a previous post sent to mathematical forum : this is because I talk about here the MATLAB function "eig" with 2 arguments but this concerns actually the combination between 2 biased tracers in Cosmology context. I am looking for a common basis of...

The Canadian physicist, Lee Smolin proposed in the 90's that laws of nature may evolve and change over time. He begun proposing that only the constants of nature would evolve, while the most fundamental laws would remain the same, but recently he has change a little bit his ideas and has...

There are several models of brane cosmology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane_cosmology) and several physicists working in this field (e.g Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum), but as you will notice, apparently they are all directly related to string theory. This has several consequences, for...

One of the distance measures in cosmology is angular diameter distance, that can be used to determine a distance to objects whose actual (spatial) size is known, i.e. standard rulers. Beside baryonic acoustic oscillations, do we know other objects (or maybe I should better say structures) that...

I am curious about space. How it works, what does it contain, all different sorts of things. Any suggestions on what books to read for a beginner so that this curiosity do not fade away with time.