The early universe: Facts and fiction (Texts and monographs in physics)

Connections developed in recent years between particlephysics and cosmologyare the focus of attention in this newtextbook. The author describes some of the theories whichhave been developed to describe the fundamental interactionof elementary particles in the extremely high temperaturesof the early universe, taking care to distinguish facts andwell-established results from hypotheses and speculations. -The three parts of the book discuss the standard hot bigbang model of the earlyuniverse, the basic ideas of thestandard and the grand unified theories of elementaryparticles, and the influence of dark matter on thelarge-scale evolution of structure. In addition to makingsome minorcorrections the author has added an appendixpresenting new results and an updated bibliography.Two main groups of readers are addressed: research studentsin astronomy can use this book to understand the impact ofelementary particle theory on cosmology, while researchstudents in particle physics can use it to acquaintthemselves with the basic facts of cosmology. The book iswritten carefully enough to appeal also to a wider audienceof physicists.