Lectures on Modern Cosmology and Structure Formation

TL;DR

This paper reviews modern cosmological models explaining the origin of cosmic structure, focusing on inflation, cosmic strings, and textures, and discusses how recent microwave background data supports these theories without conclusively distinguishing among them.

Contribution

It provides an overview of three key cosmological models and analyzes statistical methods to differentiate their predictions based on microwave background anisotropies.

Findings

COBE data supports all three models

Current data cannot distinguish between models

Statistical methods discussed for model differentiation

Abstract

Focus of these lectures is the challenge of explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. The interplay between quantum field theory and classical general relativity has given rise to several interesting cosmological models which contain mechanisms for generating density inhomogeneities. The three theories discussed here are the inflationary Universe, the cosmic string and the global texture models. The recent COBE discovery of anisotropies in the microwave background has provided some support for all three models. The present results do not allow a distinction between these models. Statistics which distinguish between the predictions of the three theories are discussed.