Nonstandard cosmological models of two broad classes are examined: those in which there are more than four spacetime dimensions, and those in which there is a variable cosmological “constant” Λ. We test claims that a number of higher-dimensional models give rise to inflation. New constraints are placed on such models, and a number of them are ruled out. We then investigate the potential of variable-Λ theories to address the problem of the initial singularity. We consider a number of different phenomenological representations for this parameter, assessing their implications for the evolution of the cosmological scale factor as well as a range of observational data. In several cases we find nonsingular models which are compatible with observation. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/8311 |
| Date | 30 June 2017 |
| Creators | Overduin, J. M. |
| Contributors | Cooperstock, F. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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