Cosmic anti-friction and accelerated expansion

In this article we review the discovery of the accelerating universe using type Ia supernovae. We then outline ways in which dark energy - component that causes the acceleration - is phenomenologically described. We finally describe principal cosmological techniques to measure large-scale properties of dark energy. This chapter complements other articles in this book that describe theoretical understanding (or lack thereof) of the cause for the accelerating universe.

After a short history of the $\Lambda$-term it is explained why the (effective) cosmological constant is expected to obtain contributions from short-distance-physics, corresponding to an energy scale of at least 100 GeV. The actual tiny value of the cosmological constant in any natural scale of units represents, therefore, one of the deepest mysteries of present day fundamental physics. We also briefly discuss recent astronomical evidence for a cosmologically significant vacu...

Recent astronomical observations of distant supernovae light-curves suggest that the expansion of the universe has recently begun to accelerate. Acceleration is created by an anti-gravitational repulsive stress, like that produced by a positive cosmological constant, or universal vacuum energy. It creates a rather bleak eschatological picture. An ever-expanding universe's future appears to be increasingly dominated by its constant vacuum energy. A universe doomed to accelerat...

In cosmology based on general relativity, the universe is modeled as a fluid. The transition from the Einstein field equation to its large-scale (cosmological) version is thus analogous to the transition, for a system consisting of a large number of molecules, from the molecular/kinetic description to thermodynamics and hydrodynamics. The cosmic fluid is an effective continuum defined on the cosmological scales (only); for such a continuum, the appearance of new emergent prop...

In this work we show that the presence of a vector field on cosmological scales could explain the present phase of accelerated expansion of the universe. The proposed theory contains no dimensional parameters nor potential terms and does not require unnatural initial conditions in the early universe, thus avoiding the so called cosmic coincidence problem. In addition, it fits the data from high-redshift supernovae with excellent precision, making definite predictions for cosm...

We explore a Gedanken-model for cosmic evolution, where dark matter is strongly self-interacting and stays in a plasma state until late stages. After decoupling, it condensates to super-structures with cosmic voids similar to the current picture of the universe. With the help of the equation of state of dry foam (equivalently a fluid with voids in it) from fluid mechanics, it is possible to show that tension within these cosmic walls due to their binding interaction may cause...

According to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, the accelerated expansion of the Universe will go on forever. Motivated by recent observational results, we explore the possibility of a finite phase of acceleration which asymptotically approaches another period of decelerated expansion. Extending an earlier study on a corresponding homogeneous and isotropic dynamics, in which interactions between dark matter and dark energy are crucial, the present paper also investigates the dy...

In this paper we show that a universe dominated by two components, namely domain walls and dissipative dark matter such that the former slowly decays into the latter may drive power law cosmological acceleration consistent with the high redshift supernovae data, while the ratio between the energy densities of both components remains fixed at late times thus solving the coincidence problem of present acceleration. Likewise, we estimate the aforesaid ratio at early times.

Motivated by results implying that the constituents of dark matter (DM) might be collisional, we consider a cosmological (toy-) model, in which the DM itself possesses some sort of thermodynamic properties. In this case, not only can the matter content of the Universe be treated as a classical gravitating fluid of positive pressure, but, together with all its other physical characteristics, the energy of this fluid's internal motions should be taken into account as a source o...

A higher value of Hubble constant has been obtained from measurements with nearby Type Ia supernovae, than that obtained at much higher redshift. With the peculiar motions of their hosts, we find that the matter content at such low redshift is only about 10% of that at much higher redshifts; such a low matter density cannot be produced from density perturbations in the background of the \Lambda CDM expansion. Recently the Planck team has reported a lower Hubble constant and a...