The minimum mass that a virialized gas cloud must have in order to be able to cool in a Hubble time is computed, using a detailed treatment of the chemistry of molecular hydrogen. With a simple model for halo proÐles, we reduce the problem to that of numerically integrating a system of chemical equations. The results agree well with numerically expensive three-dimensional simulations, and our approach has the advantage of being able to explore large regions of parameter space rapidly. The minimum baryonic mass is found to be strongly redshift dependent, dropping from at z D 15 to atas molecular cooling becomes e †ective. For z ? 100, rises again, as cosmic microwave back-M b ground photons inhibit formation through the H~channel. Finally, for z ? 200, the channel for H 2 H 2 formation becomes e †ective, driving down toward With a standard cold dark H 2 M b M b D 103 M _ . matter power spectrum with this implies that a fraction 10~3 of all baryons may have formed p 8 \ 0.7, luminous objects by z \ 30, which could be sufficient to reheat the universe.

Euclid is a European Space Agency medium-class mission selected for launch in 2020 within the cosmic vision 2015–2025 program. The main goal of Euclid is to understand the origin of the accelerated expansion of the universe. Euclid will explore the expansion history of the universe and the evolution of cosmic structures by measuring shapes and red-shifts of galaxies as well as the distribution of clusters of galaxies over a large fraction of the sky. Although the main driver for Euclid is the nature of dark energy, Euclid science covers a vast range of topics, from cosmology to galaxy evolution to planetary research. In this review we focus on cosmology and fundamental physics, with a strong emphasis on science beyond the current standard models. We discuss five broad topics: dark energy and modified gravity, dark matter, initial conditions, basic assumptions and questions of methodology in the data analysis. This review has been planned and carried out within Euclid’s Theory Working Group and is meant to provide a guide to the scientific themes that will underlie the activity of the group during the preparation of the Euclid mission.

Euclid is a European Space Agency medium-class mission selected for launch in 2019 within the Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 program. The main goal of Euclid is to understand the origin of the accelerated expansion of the universe. Euclid will explore the expansion history of the universe and the evolution of cosmic structures by measuring shapes and red-shifts of galaxies as well as the distribution of clusters of galaxies over a large fraction of the sky.Although the main driver for Euclid is the nature of dark energy, Euclid science covers a vast range of topics, from cosmology to galaxy evolution to planetary research. In this review we focus on cosmology and fundamental physics, with a strong emphasis on science beyond the current standard models. We discuss five broad topics: dark energy and modified gravity, dark matter, initial conditions, basic assumptions and questions of methodology in the data analysis.This review has been planned and carried out within Euclid’s Theory Working Group and is meant to provide a guide to the scientific themes that will underlie the activity of the group during the preparation of the Euclid mission.

The European Space Agency's Planck satellite, dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched 14 May 2009 and has been scanning the microwave and submillimetre sky continuously since 12 August 2009. In March 2013, ESA and the Planck Collaboration released the initial cosmology products based on the first 15.5 months of Planck data, along with a set of scientific and technical papers and a web-based explanatory supplement. This paper gives an overview of the mission and its performance, the processing, analysis, and characteristics of the data, the scientific results, and the science data products and papers in the release. The science products include maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and diffuse extragalactic foregrounds, a catalogue of compact Galactic and extragalactic sources, and a list of sources detected through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The likelihood code used to assess cosmological models against the Planck data and a lensing likelihood are described. Scientific results include robust support for the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model of cosmology and improved measurements of its parameters, including a highly significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum. The Planck values for these parameters and others derived from them are significantly different from those previously determined. Several large-scale anomalies in the temperature distribution of the CMB, first detected by WMAP, are confirmed with higher confidence. Planck sets new limits on the number and mass of neutrinos, and has measured gravitational lensing of CMB anisotropies at greater than 25σ. Planck finds no evidence for non-Gaussianity in the CMB. Planck's results agree well with results from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations. Planck finds a lower Hubble constant than found in some more local measures. Some tension is also present between the amplitude of matter fluctuations (σ 8 ) derived from CMB data and that derived from Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. The Planck and WMAP power spectra are offset from each other by an average level of about 2% around the first acoustic peak. Analysis of Planck polarization data is not yet mature, therefore polarization results are not released, although the robust detection of E-mode polarization around CMB hot and cold spots is shown graphically.

Abstract. Precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background by WMAP are believed to have established a flat Λ-dominated universe, seeded by nearly scale-invariant adiabatic primordial fluctuations. However by relaxing the hypothesis that the fluctuation spectrum can be described by a single power law, we demonstrate that an Einstein-de Sitter universe with zero cosmological constant can fit the data as well as the best concordance model. Moreover unlike a Λ-dominated universe, such an universe has no strong integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, so is in better agreement with the low quadrupole seen by WMAP. The main concern is that the Hubble constant is required to be rather low: H 0 46 km s −1 Mpc −1 ; we discuss whether this can be consistent with observations. Furthermore for universes consisting only of baryons and cold dark matter, the amplitude of matter fluctuations on cluster scales is too high, a problem which seems generic. However, an additional small contribution (Ω X ∼ 0.1) of matter which does not cluster on small scales, e.g. relic neutrinos with mass of order eV or a "quintessence" with w ∼ 0, can alleviate this problem. Such models provide a satisfying description of the power spectrum derived from the 2dF galaxy redshift survey and from observations of the Ly-α forest. We conclude that Einstein-de Sitter models can indeed accommodate all data on the large scale structure of the Universe, hence the Hubble diagram of distant type Ia supernovae remains the only direct evidence for a non-zero cosmological constant.