Spatial Curvature in Cosmology Revisited

Abstract

It is necessary to make assumptions in order to derive models to be used for cosmological predictions and comparison with observational data. In particular, in standard cosmology the spatial curvature is assumed to be constant and zero (or at least very small). But there is, as yet, no fully independent constraint with an appropriate accuracy that gaurentees a value for the magnitude of the effective normalized spatial curvature ${\Omega }_k$ of less than approximately $0.01$. Moreover, a small non-zero measurement of ${\Omega }_k$ at such a level perhaps indicates that the assumptions in the standard model are not satisfied. It has also been increasingly emphasised that spatial curvature is, in general, evolving in relativistic cosmological models. We review the current situation, and conclude that the possibility of such a non-zero value of ${\Omega }_k$ should be taken seriously.

arXiv commentThis short manuscript summarizes a recent talk and is based on previously published work

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Determining the range of validity of quasar X-ray and UV flux measurements for constraining cosmological model parameters
• Quasar X-ray and UV flux, baryon acoustic oscillation, and Hubble parameter measurement constraints on cosmological model parameters
• Constraints on cosmological parameters from gamma-ray burst peak photon energy and bolometric fluence measurements and other data
• Using SPTpol, Planck 2015, and non-CMB data to constrain tilted spatially-flat and untilted non-flat $\Lambda$CDM, XCDM, and $\varphi$CDM dark energy inflation cosmologies
• Cosmological constraints from HII starburst galaxy apparent magnitude and other cosmological measurements
• Cosmological constraints from higher-redshift gamma-ray burst, HII starburst galaxy, and quasar (and other) data
• Light path averages in spacetimes with non-vanishing average spatial curvature