Promise of Future Searches for Cosmic Topology.

The shortest distance around the Universe through us is unlikely to be much larger than the horizon diameter if microwave background anomalies are due to cosmic topology. We show that observational constraints from the lack of matched temperature circles in the microwave background leave many possibilities for such topologies. We evaluate the detectability of microwave background multipole correlations for sample cases. Searches for topology signatures in observational data over the large space of possible topologies pose a formidable computational challenge.

Gravitational Glint: Detectable Gravitational Wave Tails from Stars and Compact Objects.

Observations of a merging neutron star binary in both gravitational waves, by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), and across the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, by myriad telescopes, have been used to show that gravitational waves travel in vacuum at a speed that is indistinguishable from that of light to within one part in a quadrillion. However, it has long been expected mathematically that, when electromagnetic or gravitational waves travel through vacuum in a curved spacetime, the waves develop tails that travel more slowly. The associated signal has been thought to be undetectably weak. Here we demonstrate that gravitational waves are efficiently scattered by the curvature sourced by ordinary compact objects-stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and planets-and certain candidates for dark matter, populating the interior of the null cone. The resulting gravitational glint should imminently be detectable, and be recognizable (for all but planets) as briefly delayed echoes of the primary signal emanating from extremely near the direction of the primary source. This opens the prospect for using Gravitational Detection and Ranging to map the Universe and conduct a comprehensive census of massive compact objects, and ultimately to explore their interiors.

Galaxy Correlation Functions Provide a More Robust Cosmological Standard Ruler.

We show how a characteristic length scale imprinted in the galaxy two-point correlation function, dubbed the "linear point," can serve as a comoving cosmological standard ruler. In contrast to the baryon acoustic oscillation peak location, this scale is constant in redshift and is unaffected by nonlinear effects to within 0.5 percent precision. We measure the location of the linear point in the galaxy correlation function of the LOWZ and CMASS samples from the Twelfth Data Release (DR12) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Collaboration. We combine our linear-point measurement with cosmic-microwave-background constraints from the Planck satellite to estimate the isotropic-volume distance D_{V}(z), without relying on a model-template or "reconstruction" method. We find D_{V}(0.32)=1264±28 Mpc and D_{V}(0.57)=2056±22 Mpc, respectively, consistent with the quoted values from the BOSS Collaboration. This remarkable result suggests that all the distance information contained in the baryon acoustic oscillations can be conveniently compressed into the single length associated with the linear point.

Departures from the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertston-Walker Cosmological Model in an Inhomogeneous Universe: A Numerical Examination.

While the use of numerical general relativity for modeling astrophysical phenomena and compact objects is commonplace, the application to cosmological scenarios is only just beginning. Here, we examine the expansion of a spacetime using the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura formalism of numerical relativity in synchronous gauge. This work represents the first numerical cosmological study that is fully relativistic, nonlinear, and without symmetry. The universe that emerges exhibits an average Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) behavior; however, this universe also exhibits locally inhomogeneous expansion beyond that expected in linear perturbation theory around a FLRW background.

Using quasars as standard clocks for measuring cosmological redshift.

We report hitherto unnoticed patterns in quasar light curves. We characterize segments of the quasar's light curves with the slopes of the straight lines fit through them. These slopes appear to be directly related to the quasars' redshifts. Alternatively, using only global shifts in time and flux, we are able to find significant overlaps between the light curves of different pairs of quasars by fitting the ratio of their redshifts. We are then able to reliably determine the redshift of one quasar from another. This implies that one can use quasars as standard clocks, as we explicitly demonstrate by constructing two independent methods of finding the redshift of a quasar from its light curve.

Modifying gravity: you cannot always get what you want.

The combination of general relativity (GR) and the Standard Model of particle physics disagrees with numerous observations on scales from our Solar System up. In the canonical concordance model of Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology, many of these contradictions between theory and data are removed or alleviated by the introduction of three completely independent new components of stress energy--the inflaton, dark matter and dark energy. Each of these in its turn is meant to have dominated (or to currently dominate) the dynamics of the Universe. There is, until now, no non-gravitational evidence for any of these dark sectors, nor is there evidence (though there may be motivation) for the required extension of the Standard Model. An alternative is to imagine that it is GR that must be modified to account for some or all of these disagreements. Certain coincidences of scale even suggest that one might expect not to make independent modifications of the theory to replace each of the three dark sectors. Because they must address the most different types of data, attempts to replace dark matter with modified gravity are the most controversial. A phenomenological model (or family of models), modified Newtonian dynamics, has, over the last few years, seen several covariant realizations. We discuss a number of challenges that any model that seeks to replace dark matter with modified gravity must face: the loss of Birkhoff's theorem, and the calculational simplifications it implies; the failure to explain clusters, whether static or interacting, and the consequent need to introduce dark matter of some form, whether hot dark matter neutrinos or dark fields that arise in new sectors of the modified gravity theory; the intrusion of cosmological expansion into the modified force law, which arises precisely because of the coincidence in scale between the centripetal acceleration at which Newtonian gravity fails in galaxies and the cosmic acceleration. We conclude with the observation that, although modified gravity may indeed manage to replace dark matter, it is likely to do so by becoming or at least incorporating a dark matter theory itself.

Einstein's theory of gravity and the problem of missing mass.

The observed matter in the universe accounts for just 5% of the observed gravity. A possible explanation is that Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravity fail where gravity is either weak or enhanced. The modified theory of Newtonian dynamics (MOND) reproduces, without dark matter, spiral-galaxy orbital motions and the relation between luminosity and rotation in galaxies, although not in clusters. Recent extensions of Einstein's theory are theoretically more complete. They inevitably include dark fields that seed structure growth, and they may explain recent weak lensing data. However, the presence of dark fields reduces calculability and comes at the expense of the original MOND premise, that the matter we see is the sole source of gravity. Observational tests of the relic radiation, weak lensing, and the growth of structure may distinguish modified gravity from dark matter.

Why anthropic reasoning cannot predict Lambda.

We revisit anthropic arguments purporting to explain the measured value of the cosmological constant. We argue that different ways of assigning probabilities to candidate universes lead to totally different anthropic predictions. As an explicit example, we show that weighting different universes by the total number of possible observations leads to an extremely small probability for observing a value of Lambda equal to or greater than what we now measure. We conclude that anthropic reasoning within the framework of probability as frequency is ill-defined and that in the absence of a fundamental motivation for selecting one weighting scheme over another the anthropic principle cannot be used to explain the value of Lambda, nor, likely, any other physical parameters.

Why black hole production in scattering of cosmic ray neutrinos is generically suppressed.

It has been argued that neutrinos originating from ultrahigh energy cosmic rays can produce black holes deep in the atmosphere in models with TeV-scale quantum gravity. Such black-hole events could be observed at the Auger Observatory. However, any phenomenologically viable model with a low scale of quantum gravity must explain how to preserve protons from rapid decay. We argue that the suppression of proton decay will also suppress lepton-nucleon scattering and hence black-hole production by scattering of ultrahigh energy cosmic ray neutrinos in the atmosphere. We discuss explicitly the split fermion solution to the problem of fast proton decay.

Squeezing MOND into a Cosmological Scenario.

Explaining the effects of dark matter using modified gravitational dynamics (MOND) has for decades been both an intriguing and controversial possibility. By insisting that the gravitational interaction that accounts for the Newtonian force also drives cosmic expansion, one may kinematically identify which cosmologies are compatible with MOND, without explicit reference to the underlying theory so long as the theory obeys Birkhoff's law. We find that the critical acceleration a(0) must have a slight source-mass dependence (a(0) approximately M(1/3)) and that MOND cosmologies are naturally compatible with observed late-time expansion history. However, cosmologies that can produce enough density perturbations to account for structure formation are contrived and fine tuned. Even then, they may be marginally ruled out by evidence of early (z approximately 20) reionization.

Is the low-l microwave background cosmic?

The large-angle (low-l) correlations of the cosmic microwave background exhibit several statistically significant anomalies compared to the standard inflationary cosmology. We show that the quadrupole plane and the three octopole planes are far more aligned than previously thought (99.9% C.L.). Three of these planes are orthogonal to the ecliptic at 99.1% C.L., and the normals to these planes are aligned at 99.6% C.L. with the direction of the cosmological dipole and with the equinoxes. The remaining octopole plane is orthogonal to the supergalactic plane at 99.6% C.L.

Constraining the topology of the universe.

The first year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe are used to place stringent constraints on the topology of the Universe. We search for pairs of circles on the sky with similar temperature patterns along each circle. We restrict the search to back-to-back circle pairs, and to nearly back-to-back circle pairs, as this covers the majority of the topologies that one might hope to detect in a nearly flat universe. We do not find any matched circles with radius greater than 25 degrees. For a wide class of models, the nondetection rules out the possibility that we live in a universe with topology scale smaller than 24 Gpc.