Cosmology - The cosmic triangle: Revealing the state of the universe

The cosmic triangle is introduced as a way of representing the past, present and future status of the universe. Our current location within the cosmic triangle is determined by the answers to three questions: How much matter is in the universe? Is the expansion rate slowing down or speeding up? And, is the universe flat? A review of recent observations suggests a universe that is lightweight (matter density about one-third the critical value), is accelerating, and is flat. The acceleration implies the existence of cosmic dark energy that overcomes the gravitational self-attraction of matter and causes the expansion to speed up.

[1]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[2]  Emilio Noelting 1851–1922 , 1923 .

[3]  E. Hubble.  A RELATION BETWEEN DISTANCE AND RADIAL VELOCITY AMONG EXTRA-GALACTIC NEBULAE. , 1929, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[4]  Sinclair. Smith.  The Mass of the Virgo Cluster , 1936 .

[5]  Martin Schwarzschild,et al.  Mass distribution and mass-luminosity ratio in galaxies , 1954 .

[6]  V. Rubin,et al.  Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula from a Spectroscopic Survey of Emission Regions , 1970 .

[7]  P. Peebles,et al.  A Numerical Study of the Stability of Flattened Galaxies: or, can Cold Galaxies Survive? , 1973 .

[8]  An unbound universe , 1974 .

[9]  Neta A. Bahcall.  CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES , 1977 .

[10]  A. Guth.  Inflationary universe: A possible solution to the horizon and flatness problems , 1981 .

[11]  Alan H. Guth,et al.  Fluctuations in the New Inflationary Universe , 1982 .

[12]  Andreas Albrecht,et al.  Cosmology for Grand Unified Theories with Radiatively Induced Symmetry Breaking , 1982 .

[13]  P. Peebles.  Large-scale background temperature and mass fluctuations due to scale-invariant primeval perturbations , 1982 .

[14]  A. Starobinsky,et al.  Dynamics of phase transition in the new inflationary universe scenario and generation of perturbations , 1982 .

[15]  Andrei Linde,et al.  A new inflationary universe scenario: A possible solution of the horizon , 1982 .

[16]  Michael S. Turner,et al.  Spontaneous Creation of Almost Scale - Free Density Perturbations in an Inflationary Universe , 1983 .

[17]  J. Gott,et al.  The Statistics of gravitational lenses: The Distributions of image angular separations and lens redshifts , 1984 .

[18]  P. Peebles.  Tests of Cosmological Models Constrained by Inflation , 1984 .

[19]  Alan H. Guth,et al.  The Inflationary Universe , 1985 .

[20]  N. Weiss.  Possible origins of a small, nonzero cosmological constant , 1987 .

[21]  K. Olive,et al.  Primordial nucleosynthesis redux , 1991 .

[22]  Hodges,et al.  Cosmic microwave background probes models of inflation. , 1992, Physical review letters.

[23]  Nicholas B. Suntzeff,et al.  A Hubble diagram of distant type IA supernovae , 1993 .

[24]  A. Evrard,et al.  The baryon content of galaxy clusters: a challenge to cosmological orthodoxy , 1993, Nature.

[25]  The amplitude of mass fluctuations in the universe , 1993 .

[26]  M. Phillips,et al.  The Absolute Magnitudes of Type IA Supernovae , 1993 .

[27]  A. Fabian,et al.  Einstein Observatory evidence for the widespread baryon overdensity in clusters of galaxies , 1995, astro-ph/9502092.

[28]  Small scale cosmic microwave background anisotropies as a probe of the geometry of the universe , 1994, astro-ph/9401003.

[29]  K. Thorne,et al.  Particle and nuclear astrophysics and cosmology in the next millenium: Snowmass 1994 , 1994 .

[30]  T. Lauer,et al.  The Motion of the Local Group with Respect to the 15,000 Kilometer per Second Abell Cluster Inertial Frame , 1994 .

[31]  P. Steinhardt.  Cosmology at the Crossroads , 1995, astro-ph/9502024.

[32]  Testing Cosmogonic Models with Gravitational Lensing , 1995, Science.

[33]  Paul J. Steinhardt,et al.  The observational case for a low-density Universe with a non-zero cosmological constant , 1995, Nature.

[34]  Hill,et al.  Cosmology with ultralight pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[35]  S. Cole,et al.  Using the evolution of clusters to constrain Omega , 1996, astro-ph/9601088.

[36]  Spergel,et al.  Cosmological-parameter determination with microwave background maps. , 1996, Physical review. D, Particles and fields.

[37]  J. Ostriker,et al.  Using Cluster Abundances and Peculiar Velocities to Test the Gaussianity of the Cosmological Density Field , 1997, astro-ph/9708250.

[38]  Structure Formation with a Self-Tuning Scalar Field , 1997, astro-ph/9707286.

[39]  The physics of microwave background anisotropies , 1995, Nature.

[40]  E. M. Leitch,et al.  Measurements of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect in the Nearby Clusters A478, A2142, and A2256 , 1997 .

[41]  U. Seljak,et al.  Signature of gravity waves in polarization of the microwave background , 1996, astro-ph/9609169.

[42]  M. Fukugita,et al.  THE COSMIC BARYON BUDGET , 1997, astro-ph/9712020.

[43]  The evolution of galaxy clustering , 1996, astro-ph/9608151.

[44]  The Age of Globular Clusters in Light of Hipparcos: Resolving the Age Problem? , 1997, astro-ph/9706128.

[45]  Albert Stebbins,et al.  A Probe of Primordial Gravity Waves and Vorticity , 1997 .

[46]  Dynamical Lambda models of structure formation , 1996, astro-ph/9608122.

[47]  A lightweight universe? , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[48]  M. Phillips,et al.  Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant , 1998, astro-ph/9805201.

[49]  Paul J. Steinhardt,et al.  Cosmological imprint of an energy component with general equation of state , 1998 .

[50]  M. Turner,et al.  Big-bang nucleosynthesis enters the precision era , 1997, astro-ph/9706069.

[51]  Metal-rich globular clusters in the galactic disk: new age determinations and the relation to halo clusters , 1998, astro-ph/9802075.

[52]  Direct searches for dark matter: recent results. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[53]  J. Scurry,et al.  Primary malignant mixed Müllerian tumor of the vagina. , 1998, Gynecologic oncology.

[54]  Katsuhiko Sato.  Cosmological parameters and the evolution of the universe , 1999 .