Acceleration of the Universe

Abstract

The cosmological model best capable of fitting current observational data features two separate epochs during which the Universe is accelerating. During the earliest stages of the Universe, such acceleration is known as cosmological inflation, believed to explain the global properties of the Universe and the origin of structure. Observations of the present state of the Universe strongly suggest that its density is currently dominated by dark energy with properties equivalent or similar to a cosmological constant. In these lecture notes, I provide an introductory account of both topics, including the possibility that the two epochs may share the same physical description, and give an overview of the current status.

31 pages LaTeX file with two figures incorporated. Paper efficient 2up landscape version (16 pages) at http://star-www.cpes.susx.ac.uk/~andrewl/cargese2.ps.gz Based on talks given at `Understanding our Universe at the close of the 20th century', Cargese, April 2000. Companion paper to astro-ph/0009492 by Pedro Viana

References in corpus (5)

• Cosmology and the Fate of Dilatation Symmetry
• A Flat Universe from High-Resolution Maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
• Superstring Cosmology
• Quintessence and Supergravity
• Constraining the equation of state of the Universe from Distant Type Ia Supernovae and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Inflation and dark energy from f(R) gravity
• Scalar-tensor linear inflation
• Reinventing spacetime on a dynamical hypersurface
• Brans-Dicke Cosmology in 4D from scalar-vacuum in 5D
• An analytic model for the transition from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion
• Late time cosmic acceleration from vacuum Brans-Dicke theory in 5D
• Saddle point inflation from higher order corrections to Higgs/Starobinsky inflation
• Transition from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion in braneworld universes
• Multi-phase induced inflation in theories with non-minimal coupling to gravity
• Quantum Hubble horizon
• Saddle point inflation from $f(R)$ theory
• Implications of extreme flatness in a general f(R) theory
• Brane Cosmology from Heterotic String Theory