Bharat Ratra Seminar Abstract

Tufts/CfA/MIT Cosmology Seminar, at MIT:

                       Tuesday May 19, 1998
                             2:30 pm
           Center for Theoretical Physics Seminar Room

                     "Is the Universe Open?"

                           Bharat Ratra
                     Kansas State University

Abstract:

A broad-brush review of current observational data is used to motivate the consideration of cosmogonies with low cosmological mass density. A computation of the cosmological inhomogeneities produced by quantum-mechanical fluctuations during an early epoch of inflation in a low-density cold dark matter model with open spatial hypersurfaces is summarized. The COBE-DMR sky maps are used to determine the normalization of the large-angular-scale cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy in this model. The predictions of this, and other, COBE-DMR-normalized models are discussed in the context of observational data on the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of cosmological structure.