Origin & evolution of the Universe

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to question some of the basic assumptions that go into building the $\Lambda$CDM model of our universe. The assumptions we focus on are the initial conditions of the universe, the fundamental forces in the universe on large scales and the approximations made in analysing cosmological data. For each of the assumptions we outline the theoretical understanding behind them, the current methods used to study them and how they can be improved and finally we also perform numerical analysis to quantify the novel solutions/methods we propose to extend the previous assumptions.

DPhil thesis

References in corpus (30)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Models of f(R) Cosmic Acceleration that Evade Solar-System Tests
• Wide-Field InfrarRed Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets WFIRST-AFTA 2015 Report
• Maximal freedom at minimum cost: linear large-scale structure in general modifications of gravity
• Effects of Baryons and Dissipation on the Matter Power Spectrum
• CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Probing Inflation with CMB Polarization
• KiDS-450 + 2dFLenS: Cosmological parameter constraints from weak gravitational lensing tomography and overlapping redshift-space galaxy clustering
• Non-linear Evolution of f(R) Cosmologies III: Halo Statistics
• Equivalence Principle Implications of Modified Gravity Models
• N-body Simulations for f(R) Gravity using a Self-adaptive Particle-Mesh Code
• Systematic Bias in Cosmic Shear: Beyond the Fisher Matrix
• Constraining chameleon models with cosmology
• On the assumption of Gaussianity for cosmological two-point statistics and parameter dependent covariance matrices
• How accurate is Limber's equation?
• Theories of Dark Energy with Screening Mechanisms
• Massive data compression for parameter-dependent covariance matrices
• Perturbative approach to covariance matrix of the matter power spectrum
• Quantifying lost information due to covariance matrix estimation in parameter inference
• Relativistic distortions in the large-scale clustering of SDSS-III BOSS CMASS galaxies
• Biases on the cosmological parameters and thermal SZ residuals
• Gravitational Redshift of Galaxies in Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• Rogues' gallery: the full freedom of the Bianchi CMB anomalies
• Cosmological Perturbations on a Bouncing Brane
• On the Transfer of Adiabatic Fluctuations through a Nonsingular Cosmological Bounce
• Perturbations in a regular bouncing Universe
• Relativistic Effects on Galaxy Redshift Samples due to Target Selection
• Non-Gaussianity from Entanglement During Inflation
• Non-local Matching Condition and Scale-invariant Spectrum in Bouncing Cosmology
• Relativistic asymmetries in the galaxy cross-correlation function
• Initial conditions of the universe: Decaying tensor modes