Cosmology as a Problem in Critical Phenomena

TL;DR

This paper explores how critical phenomena could influence key issues in cosmology and astrophysics, such as galaxy structure, initial conditions, and quantum gravity limits.

Contribution

It proposes that critical phenomena may be fundamental to understanding various unresolved problems in cosmology and astrophysics.

Findings

Critical phenomena may organize galaxy disks.

Criticality could impact structure formation.

Insights into quantum gravity limits are suggested.

Abstract

Several problems in cosmology and astrophysics are described in which critical phenomena of various types may play a role. These include the organization of the disks of spiral galaxies, various aspects of the problem of structure formation in icosmology, the problem of the selection of initial conditions and parameters in particle physics and cosmology and the problem of recovering the classical limit from non-perturbative formulations of quantum gravity.