Cosmology and Gravitation Theories

Cosmology and gravitation theories seek to explain the origin, structure, and large-scale evolution of the universe by combining observational data — from the faint thermal afterglow of the Big Bang known as the cosmic microwave background, to the distances of exploding stars and the statistical clustering of galaxies — with the mathematical framework of general relativity. A central puzzle driving current research is the nature of dark energy, the poorly understood component that appears to be accelerating the universe's expansion and accounts for roughly two-thirds of its total energy content. Observations of the Hubble constant — the rate at which the universe is expanding today — have produced stubbornly inconsistent values depending on the measurement method used, hinting that the standard cosmological model may be incomplete. This tension has prompted active work on modified gravity and scalar-tensor theories, which test whether general relativity itself needs revision on cosmic scales, alongside efforts to refine constraints on inflationary models that describe the universe's earliest moments.

Works

271,471

Total citations

3,658,619

Keywords

Cosmological ParametersDark EnergyCosmic Microwave BackgroundInflationModified GravitySupernovae