This book represents the proceedings from the NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop entitled "Observational Tests of Inflation" held at the University of Durham, England on the 10th-14th December, 1990. In recent years, the cosmological inflation model has drawn together the worlds of particle physics, theoretical cosmology and observational astronomy. The aim of the workshop was to bring together experts in all of these fields to discuss the current status of the inflation theory and its observational predictions. The simplest inflation model makes clear predictions which are testable by astronomical observation. Foremost is the prediction that the cosmological density parameter, no, should have a value negligibly different from the critical, Einstein-de Sitter value of 00=1. The other main prediction is that the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations should be Gaussian and take the Harrison-Zeldovich form. The prediction that n =l, in patticular, leads to several important consequences o for cosmology. Firstly, there is the apparent contradiction with the limits on baryon density from Big Bang nucleosynthesis which has led to the common conjecture that weakly interacting particles rather than baryons may form the dominant mass constituent of the Universe. Secondly, with n =l, the age of the Universe is uncomfortably short if o the Hubble constant and the ages of the oldest star clusters lie within their currently believed limits.

Klappentext

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Observational Tests of Inflation, Durham, U.K., December 10-14, 1990

Inhalt
I. Inflation Theory.- Fundamental Arguments for Inflation.- Predictions of Inflation.- Classicality of Density Perturbations in the Early Universe.- The Influence of Non-Linear Density Fluctuations on the Microwave Sky.- Quantum Cosmology and the Cosmological Constant.- Lessons from Inflation and Cold Dark Matter.- The Topology of Galaxy Clustering.- Can Non-Gaussian Fluctuations for Structure Formation Arise from Inflation.- Non-Baryonic Dark Matter.- Are Galactic Halos Made of Brown Dwarfs or Black Holes.- II. Cosmological Timescale Test.- Ages of Globular Clusters.- Globular Cluster Ages and Cosmology.- The Local Distance Scale: How Reliable Is It.- Distances to Virgo and Beyond.- The Luminosity-Line-Width Relations and the Value of Ho.- Observational Status of HO.- Calibrating Cepheid Sequences in Nearby Galaxies.- New D-? Results for Coma Ellipticals.- Novae and the Distance Scale.- A High Resolution, Ground Based Observation of a Virgo Galaxy.- Globular Clusters as Extragalactic Distance Indicators.- III. High Redshift Tests of ?o.- High-Redshift Tests of ?.- Cosmology with Galaxies at High Redshifts.- Prospects for Measuring the Deceleration Parameter.- Aligned Radio Galaxies.- K Band Galaxy Counts and the Cosmological Geometry.- Selection Effects in Redshift Surveys.- An Inflationary Alternative to the Big-Bang.- IV. Galaxy Clustering, ?o and the Primordial Spectrum.- Dynamical Estimates of ?o from Galaxy Clustering.- ROSAT Observations of Clusters of Galaxies.- A Deep ROSAT Observation at High Galactic Latitude.- Large Scale Structure and Inflation.- The Structure of the Universe on Large Scales.- Testing the Zeldovich Spectrum.- ? on the Scale of 3Mm/s.- Tests of Inflation Using the QDOT Redshift Survey.- Testing Inflation with Peculiar Velocities.- TheInvisible Cosmological Constant.- Support for Inflation from the Great Attractor.- The Angular Large Scale Structure.- Is There Any Observational Evidence for Non- Gaussian Primordial Density Fluctuations.- V. Microwave Background Anisotropy.- COBE DMR Observations of CMB Anisotropy.- Observations of Microwave Background Anisotropy at Tenerife and Cambridge.- Foreground Effects and the Search for Fluctuations in the CMB Radiation.- Microwave Background Anisotropics and Large Scale Structure in the Universe.- Discovery of the Small Scale Sky Anisotropy at 2.7cm: Radio Sources or Relic Emission.- Balloon-Borne Observations of CMB Anisotropics at Intermediate Angular Scales, at Sub-MM and MM Wavelengths.- VI. Poster Papers.- The Durham/UKST Galaxy Redshift Survey.- Time Evolution of Lensed Image Separations.- Deep Galactic Surveys as Probes of the Large Scale Structure of the Universe.- Intergalactic Absorption in the Spectra of High-Redshift QSOs.- A Complete Quasar Sample at Intermediate Redshift.- Radio-Luminosity Dependence of the IR-Radio Alignment Effect in High-z Radio Galaxies.- Density and Peculiar Velocity Fields in the Region of Dressler's Supergalactic Plane Survey.- Scale Invariance Induced by Non-linear Growth of Density Fluctuations.- The Power Spectrum of Galaxy Clustering.- Higher Moments of the IRAS Galaxy Distribution.- Collapse of a Protogalactic Cloud.- Index of Authors.