Cosmology Challenges: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Galaxy Formation

[wolram]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0712/0712.2865v1.pdf

New Frontiers in Cosmology and Galaxy Formation: Challenges for the Future
Authors: Richard Ellis (Caltech), Joseph Silk (Oxford)
Comments: To appear in "Structure Formation in the Universe", ed. Chabrier, G., Cambridge University Press. High resolution version on this http URL
Subjects: Astrophysics (astro-ph)

(Abridged) Cosmology faces three distinct challenges in the next decade. (1) The dark sector, both dark matter and dark energy, dominates the Universe. Key questions include determining the nature of both. Improved observational probes are crucial. (2) Galaxy formation was initiated at around the epoch of reionization: we need to understand how and when as well as to develop probes of earlier epochs. (3) Our simple dark matter-driven picture of galaxy assembly is seemingly at odds with several observational results, including the presence of ULIRGS at high z, the `downsizing' signature, chemical signatures of alpha-element ratios and suggestions that merging may not be important in defining the Hubble sequence. Understanding the physical implications is a major challenge for theorists and refiniing the observational uncertainties a major goal for observers.

The thing that interests me is the (what is the universe made of) question, and the finding or lack of of what is proposed.

 

[marcus]

IMO this is 24 carat pure gold mainstream cosmology.
I've the highest respect for Joe Silk and am proud to have met him.
I went and bothered him with a question in his office one time when he was at UCBerkeley.

thanks to your flagging this I added it to the bibliography
lets get the URL for the abstract and also for the high-resolution version
the short abstract is here
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.2865
the high-resolution version is here on Ellis' Caltech server
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~rse/chamonix.pdf

An ULIRG is an ultra luminous infrared galaxy
ULIRGs are believed to be places where a lot of star-formation is going on.