Spintessence: a possible candidate as a driver of the late time cosmic acceleration

In this paper, it is shown completely analytically that a spintessence model can very well serve the purpose of providing an early deceleration and the present day acceleration.Comment: 5 pages, no figure. Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

The Nearby Supernova Factory

The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) is an ambitious project to find and study in detail approximately 300 nearby Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) at redshifts 0.03<z<0.08. This program will provide an exceptional data set of well-studied SNe in the nearby smooth Hubble flow that can be used as calibration for the current and future programs designed to use SNe to measure the cosmological parameters. The first key ingredient for this program is a reliable supply of Hubble-flow SNe systematically discovered in unprecedented numbers using the same techniques as those used in distant SNe searches. In 2002, 35 SNe were found using our test-bed pipeline for automated SN search and discovery. The pipeline uses images from the asteroid search conducted by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking group at JPL. Improvements in our subtraction techniques and analysis have allowed us to increase our effective SN discovery rate to ~12 SNe/month in 2003.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures to be published in New Astronomy Review

Modified Chaplygin Gas and Constraints on its B parameter from CDM and UDME Cosmological models

We study Modified Chaplygin Gas (MCG) as a candidate for dark energy and predict the values of parameters of the gas for a physically viable cosmological model. The equation of state of MCG ($p=B \rho - \frac {A}{\rho^\alpha}$) involves three parameters: $B$, $A$ and $\alpha$. The permitted values of these parameters are determined with the help of dimensionless age parameter ($H_{o}t_{o}$) and $H(z)-z$ Data. Specifically we study the allowed ranges of values of B parameter in terms of $\alpha$ and $A_{s}$ ($A_{s}$ is defined in terms of the constants in the theory). We explore the constraints of the parameters in Cold Dark Matter(CDM) model and UDME(Unified Dark Matter Energy) model respectively.Comment: 5 pages, 10 fig

A late time acceleration of the universe with two scalar fields : many possibilities

In the present work, an attempt has been made to explain the recent cosmic acceleration with two mutually interacting scalar fields, one being the Brans-Dicke scalar field and the other a quintessence scalar field. Conditions have been derived for which the quintessence scalar field has an early oscillation and it grows during a later time to govern the dynamics of the universe.Comment: 8 pages, no figures. Accepted for publication in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Curvature Dependence of Peaks in the Cosmic Microwave Background Distribution

The widely cited formula $\ell_1\simeq 200 \Omega_0^{-1/2}$ for the multipole number of the first Doppler peak is not even a crude approximation in the case of greatest current interest, in which the cosmic mass density is less than the vacuum energy density. For instance, with $\Omega_M$ fixed at 0.3, the position of any Doppler peak varies as $\Omega_0^{-1.58}$ near $\Omega_0=1$.Comment: 7 pages, Late

Can luminosity distance measurements probe the equation of state of dark energy

Distance measurements to Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at cosmological distances indicate that the Universe is accelerating and that a large fraction of the critical energy density exists in a component with negative pressure. Various hypotheses on the nature of this ``dark energy'' can be tested via their prediction for the equation of state of this component. If the dark energy is due to a scalar field, its equation of state will in general vary with time and is related to the potential of the field. We review the intrinsic degeneracies of luminosity distance measurements and compute the expected accuracies that can be obtained for the equation of state parameter from a realistic high statistic SNe Ia experiment.Comment: 12 pages, 3 Postscript figures, use epsfig, amssymb, amsmath. Submitted to Physics Letters.

Carmeli's accelerating universe is spatially flat without dark matter

Carmeli's 5D brane cosmology has been applied to the expanding accelerating universe and it has been found that the distance redshift relation will fit the data of the high-z supernova teams without the need for dark matter. Also the vacuum energy contribution to gravity indicates that the universe is asymptotically expanding towards a spatially flat state, where the total mass/energy density tends to unity.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Int. J. Theor. Physics, this paper is based on an invited talk at FFP6, Udine, Italy, Sept 200