Cosmological Inflation, Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Dear Colleagues,

Based on the recent cosmological observations, such as Type Ia Supernovae, cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation large scale structure, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) and weak lensing, the universe has experienced the accelerated phase of its expansion not only in the early universe but also in the present time. The former is called "inflation" and the latter is called "the late-time cosmic acceleration". It is also well known that the three energy components of the universe are dark energy (about 68%), dark matter (about 27%) and baryon (about 5%).

A number of studies have been executed for the origins of the field to realize inflation, dark matter and dark energy, which are most fundamental problems in modern physics and cosmology. The future detection of the primordial gravitational waves is strongly expected in order to know the energy scale of the inflationary phase. Moreover, there are two possibilities for the origin of dark matter, namely, new particles in particle-theory models beyond the standard model and astrophysical objects. Furthermore, there have been proposed two representative studies for the true character of dark energy. One is the introduction of some unknown matter called dark energy with the negative pressure in the framework of general relativity. The other is the modification of gravity at large scales, leading to the so-called geometrical dark energy.

The main aim of this Special Issue is to understand various cosmological aspects of inflation, dark matter and dark energy. In addition to the phenomenological approaches, more fundamental studies are considered from higher-dimensional theories of gravity, quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, physics in the early universe, quantum field theories and gauge field theories in curved spacetime, and strings, branes and holographic principle. It is very pleased to receive submissions to this Special Issue on inflation, dark matter, dark energy and related foundations of physics.

Prof. Dr. Kazuharu Bamba
Guest Editor

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