Abstract
The cosmological parameters are well defined now, after the satellite WMAP has measured anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background with high accuracy. Adding to this the information from the Hubble diagram of type Ia supernovae, and from the analysis of the large scale galaxy distribution, we find that we live in a Universe that undergoes accelerated expansion. The energy densities reach the critical value, and relative to that baryons are 0.04, dark matter 0.26, and a mysterious dark energy balances everything with its contribution of 0.7. The measurements agree well with the predictions of the inflationary model. The inflation models can also nicely accommodate speculations on varying constants of nature. A toy model involving dark energy for a varying fine structure constant α is briefly mentioned.
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References
1. G. Börner. The Early Universe – Facts and Fiction. (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2003) (this text-book contains all relevant cosmological results up to 2002; only a few additional references are added).
2. A.G. Riess et al., Ap. J. 504, 1998, 935; S. Perlmutter et al., Nature 391, 1998, 51.
3. C.L. Bennett et al., Ap. J. Suppl. 148, 2003, 1; a web-site for WMAP is http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov.
4. A.D. Linde. Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology (Harvard Acad. 1990).
5. J. Barrow, Ap. Space Sci. 283, 2003, 645.
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Börner, G. (2004). Time and the Universe. In: Karshenboim, S.G., Peik, E. (eds) Astrophysics, Clocks and Fundamental Constants. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 648. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40991-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40991-5_2
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