Non-standard

cosmology

A non-standard cosmology is any physical

cosmological model of the universe that
was, or still is, proposed as an alternative
to the then-current standard model of
cosmology. The term non-standard is
applied to any theory that does not
conform to the scientific consensus.
Because the term depends on the
prevailing consensus, the meaning of the
term changes over time. For example, hot
dark matter would not have been
considered non-standard in 1990, but
would be in 2010. Conversely, a non-zero
cosmological constant resulting in an
accelerating universe would have been
considered non-standard in 1990, but is
part of the standard cosmology in 2010.

Several major cosmological disputes have

occurred throughout the history of
cosmology. One of the earliest was the
Copernican Revolution, which established
the heliocentric model of the Solar
System. More recent was the Great Debate
of 1920, in the aftermath of which the
Milky Way's status as but one of the
Universe's many galaxies was established.
From the 1940s to the 1960s, the
astrophysical community was equally
divided between supporters of the Big
Bang theory and supporters of a rival
steady state universe; this is currently
decided in favour of the Big Bang theory by
advances in observational cosmology in
the late 1960s. Nevertheless, there
remained vocal detractors of the Big Bang
theory including Fred Hoyle, Jayant
Narlikar, Halton Arp, and Hannes Alfvén,
whose cosmologies were relegated to the
fringes of astronomical research. The few
Big Bang opponents still active today often
ignore well-established evidence from
newer research, and as a consequence,
today non-standard cosmologies that
reject the Big Bang entirely are rarely
published in peer-reviewed science
journals but appear online in marginal
journals and private websites.[1]

The current standard model of cosmology

is the Lambda-CDM model, wherein the
Universe is governed by general relativity,
began with a Big Bang and today is a
nearly-flat universe that consists of
approximately 5% baryons, 27% cold dark
matter, and 68% dark energy.[2] Lambda-
CDM has been a successful model, but
recent observational evidence seem to
indicate significant tensions in Lambda-
CDM, such as the Hubble tension, the KBC
void, the dwarf galaxy problem, et cetera.
Research on extensions or modifications
to Lambda-CDM, as well as fundamentally
different models, is ongoing. Topics
investigated include quintessence,
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND)
and its relativistic generalization TeVeS,
and warm dark matter.

History
Modern physical cosmology as it is
currently studied first emerged as a
scientific discipline in the period after the
Shapley–Curtis debate and discoveries by
Edwin Hubble of a cosmic distance ladder
when astronomers and physicists had to
come to terms with a universe that was of
a much larger scale than the previously
assumed galactic size. Theorists who
successfully developed cosmologies
applicable to the larger-scale universe are
remembered today as the founders of
modern cosmology. Among these
scientists are Arthur Milne, Willem de
Sitter, Alexander Friedman, Georges
Lemaître, and Albert Einstein himself.
After confirmation of the Hubble's law by
observation, the two most popular
cosmological theories became the Steady
State theory of Hoyle, Gold and Bondi, and
the big bang theory of Ralph Alpher,
George Gamow, and Robert Dicke with a
small number of supporters of a
smattering of alternatives. One of the
major successes of the Big Bang theory
compared to its competitor was its
prediction for the abundance of light
elements in the universe that corresponds
with the observed abundances of light
elements. Alternative theories do not have
a means to explain these abundances.
Theories which assert that the universe
has an infinite age with no beginning have
trouble accounting for the abundance of
deuterium in the cosmos, because
deuterium easily undergoes nuclear fusion
in stars and there are no known
astrophysical processes other than the Big
Bang itself that can produce it in large
quantities. Hence the fact that deuterium
is not an extremely rare component of the
universe suggests both that the universe
has a finite age and that there was a
process that created deuterium in the past
that no longer occurs.
Theories which assert that the universe
has a finite life, but that the Big Bang did
not happen, have problems with the
abundance of helium-4. The observed
amount of 4He is far larger than the
amount that should have been created via
stars or any other known process. By
contrast, the abundance of 4He in Big
Bang models is very insensitive to
assumptions about baryon density,
changing only a few percent as the baryon
density changes by several orders of
magnitude. The observed value of 4He is
within the range calculated.
Still, it was not until the discovery of the
Cosmic microwave background radiation
(CMB) by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
in 1965, that most cosmologists finally
concluded that observations were best
explained by the big bang model. Steady
State theorists and other non-standard
cosmologies were then tasked with
providing an explanation for the
phenomenon if they were to remain
plausible. This led to original approaches
including integrated starlight and cosmic
iron whiskers, which were meant to
provide a source for a pervasive, all-sky
microwave background that was not due
to an early universe phase transition.
Artist depiction of the WMAP spacecraft at the L2 point. Data gathered by this spacecraft has been successfully used to
parametrize the features of standard cosmology, but complete analysis of the data in the context of any non-standard
cosmology has not yet been achieved.

Scepticism about the non-standard

cosmologies' ability to explain the CMB
caused interest in the subject to wane
since then, however, there have been two
periods in which interest in non-standard
cosmology has increased due to
observational data which posed difficulties
for the big bang. The first occurred was
the late 1970s when there were a number
of unsolved problems, such as the horizon
problem, the flatness problem, and the
lack of magnetic monopoles, which
challenged the big bang model. These
issues were eventually resolved by cosmic
inflation in the 1980s. This idea
subsequently became part of the
understanding of the big bang, although
alternatives have been proposed from time
to time. The second occurred in the mid-
1990s when observations of the ages of
globular clusters and the primordial helium
abundance, apparently disagreed with the
big bang. However, by the late 1990s, most
astronomers had concluded that these
observations did not challenge the big
bang and additional data from COBE and
the WMAP, provided detailed quantitative
measures which were consistent with
standard cosmology.

Today, heterodox non-standard

cosmologies are generally considered
unworthy of consideration by
cosmologists while many of the
historically significant nonstandard
cosmologies are considered to have been
falsified. The essentials of the big bang
theory have been confirmed by a wide
range of complementary and detailed
observations, and no non-standard
cosmologies have reproduced the range of
successes of the big bang model.
Speculations about alternatives are not
normally part of research or pedagogical
discussions, except as object lessons or
for their historical importance. An open
letter started by some remaining
advocates of non-standard cosmology has
affirmed that: "today, virtually all financial
and experimental resources in cosmology
are devoted to big bang studies...."[3]

In the 1990s, a dawning of a "golden age

of cosmology" was accompanied by a
startling discovery that the expansion of
the universe was, in fact, accelerating.
Previous to this, it had been assumed that
matter either in its visible or invisible dark
matter form was the dominant energy
density in the universe. This "classical" big
bang cosmology was overthrown when it
was discovered that nearly 70% of the
energy in the universe was attributable to
the cosmological constant, often referred
to as "dark energy". This has led to the
development of a so-called concordance
ΛCDM model which combines detailed
data obtained with new telescopes and
techniques in observational astrophysics
with an expanding, density-changing
universe. Today, it is more common to find
in the scientific literature proposals for
"non-standard cosmologies" that actually
accept the basic tenets of the big bang
cosmology, while modifying parts of the
concordance model. Such theories include
alternative models of dark energy, such as
quintessence, phantom energy and some
ideas in brane cosmology; alternative
models of dark matter, such as modified
Newtonian dynamics; alternatives or
extensions to inflation such as chaotic
inflation and the ekpyrotic model; and
proposals to supplement the universe with
a first cause, such as the Hartle–Hawking
boundary condition, the cyclic model, and
the string landscape. There is no
consensus about these ideas amongst
cosmologists, but they are nonetheless
active fields of academic inquiry.
Alternatives to Big Bang
cosmologies
Before observational evidence was
gathered, theorists developed frameworks
based on what they understood to be the
most general features of physics and
philosophical assumptions about the
universe. When Albert Einstein developed
his general theory of relativity in 1915, this
was used as a mathematical starting point
for most cosmological theories.[4] In order
to arrive at a cosmological model,
however, theoreticians needed to make
assumptions about the nature of the
largest scales of the universe. The
assumptions that the current standard
model of cosmology relies upon are:

1. the universality of physical laws –

that the laws of physics don't change
from one place and time to another,
2. the cosmological principle – that the
universe is roughly homogeneous
and isotropic in space though not
necessarily in time, and
3. the Copernican principle – that we
are not observing the universe from a
preferred locale.

These assumptions when combined with

General Relativity result in a universe that
is governed by the Friedmann–Robertson–
Walker metric (FRW metric). The FRW
metric allows for a universe that is either
expanding or contracting (as well as
stationary but unstable universes). When
Hubble's Law was discovered, most
astronomers interpreted the law as a sign
the universe is expanding. This implies the
universe was smaller in the past, and
therefore led to the following conclusions:

1. the universe emerged from a hot,

dense state at a finite time in the
past,
2. because the universe heats up as it
contracts and cools as it expands, in
 the first moments that time existed
as we know it, the temperatures were
high enough for Big Bang
nucleosynthesis to occur, and
3. a cosmic microwave background
pervading the entire universe should
exist, which is a record of a phase
transition that occurred when the
atoms of the universe first formed.

These features were derived by numerous

individuals over a period of years; indeed it
was not until the middle of the twentieth
century that accurate predictions of the
last feature and observations confirming
its existence were made. Non-standard
theories developed either by starting from
different assumptions or by contradicting
the features predicted by the prevailing
standard model of cosmology.[5]

Steady State theories

The Steady State theory extends the

homogeneity assumption of the
cosmological principle to reflect a
homogeneity in time as well as in space.
This "perfect cosmological principle" as it
would come to be called asserted that the
universe looks the same everywhere (on
the large scale), the same as it always has
and always will. This is in contrast to
Lambda-CDM, in which the universe
looked very different in the past and will
look very different in the future. Steady
State theory was proposed in 1948 by Fred
Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and
others. In order to maintain the perfect
cosmological principle in an expanding
universe, steady state cosmology had to
posit a "matter-creation field" (the so-
called C-field) that would insert matter into
the universe in order to maintain a
constant density.[5]

The debate between the Big Bang and the

Steady State models would happen for 15
years with camps roughly evenly divided
until the discovery of the cosmic
microwave background radiation. This
radiation is a natural feature of the Big
Bang model which demands a "time of last
scattering" where photons decouple with
baryonic matter. The Steady State model
proposed that this radiation could be
accounted for by so-called "integrated
starlight" which was a background caused
in part by Olbers' paradox in an infinite
universe. In order to account for the
uniformity of the background, steady state
proponents posited a fog effect
associated with microscopic iron particles
that would scatter radio waves in such a
manner as to produce an isotropic CMB.
The proposed phenomena was
whimsically named "cosmic iron whiskers"
and served as the thermalization
mechanism. The Steady State theory did
not have the horizon problem of the Big
Bang because it assumed an infinite
amount of time was available for
thermalizing the background.[5]

As more cosmological data began to be

collected, cosmologists began to realize
that the Big Bang correctly predicted the
abundance of light elements observed in
the cosmos. What was a coincidental ratio
of hydrogen to deuterium and helium in
the steady state model was a feature of
the Big Bang model. Additionally, detailed
measurements of the CMB since the
1990s with the COBE, WMAP and Planck
observations indicated that the spectrum
of the background was closer to a
blackbody than any other source in nature.
The best integrated starlight models could
predict was a thermalization to the level of
10% while the COBE satellite measured the
deviation at one part in 105. After this
dramatic discovery, the majority of
cosmologists became convinced that the
steady state theory could not explain the
observed CMB properties.
Although the original steady state model is
now considered to be contrary to
observations (particularly the CMB) even
by its one-time supporters, modifications
of the steady state model have been
proposed, including a model that envisions
the universe as originating through many
little bangs rather than one big bang (the
so-called "quasi-steady state cosmology").
It supposes that the universe goes through
periodic expansion and contraction
phases, with a soft "rebound" in place of
the Big Bang. Thus the Hubble Law is
explained by the fact that the universe is
currently in an expansion phase. Work
continues on this model (most notably by
Jayant V. Narlikar), although it has not
gained widespread mainstream
acceptance.[6]

Proposals based on observational

skepticism

As the observational cosmology began to

develop, certain astronomers began to
offer alternative speculations regarding
the interpretation of various phenomena
that occasionally became parts of non-
standard cosmologies.
Tired light

Tired light theories challenge the common

interpretation of Hubble's Law as a sign
the universe is expanding. It was proposed
by Fritz Zwicky in 1929. The basic
proposal amounted to light losing energy
("getting tired") due to the distance it
traveled rather than any metric expansion
or physical recession of sources from
observers. A traditional explanation of this
effect was to attribute a dynamical friction
to photons; the photons' gravitational
interactions with stars and other material
will progressively reduce their momentum,
thus producing a redshift. Other proposals
for explaining how photons could lose
energy included the scattering of light by
intervening material in a process similar to
observed interstellar reddening. However,
all these processes would also tend to blur
images of distant objects, and no such
blurring has been detected.[7]

Traditional tired light has been found

incompatible with the observed time
dilation that is associated with the
cosmological redshift.[8] This idea is
mostly remembered as a falsified
alternative explanation for Hubble's law in
most astronomy or cosmology
discussions.
Redshift periodicity and intrinsic redshifts

Halton Arp in London, Oct 2000

Some astrophysicists were unconvinced

that the cosmological redshifts are caused
by universal cosmological expansion.[9][10]
Skepticism and alternative explanations
began appearing in the scientific literature
in the 1960s. In particular, Geoffrey
Burbidge, William Tifft and Halton Arp
were all observational astrophysicists who
proposed that there were inconsistencies
in the redshift observations of galaxies
and quasars. The first two were famous
for suggesting that there were
periodicities in the redshift distributions of
galaxies and quasars. Subsequent
statistical analyses of redshift surveys,
however, have not confirmed the existence
of these periodicities.[11]

During the quasar controversies of the

1970s, these same astronomers were also
of the opinion that quasars exhibited high
redshifts not due to their incredible
distance but rather due to unexplained
intrinsic redshift mechanisms that would
cause the periodicities and cast doubt on
the Big Bang.[10] Arguments over how
distant quasars were took the form of
debates surrounding quasar energy
production mechanisms, their light curves,
and whether quasars exhibited any proper
motion. Astronomers who believed
quasars were not at cosmological
distances argued that the Eddington
luminosity set limits on how distant the
quasars could be since the energy output
required to explain the apparent
brightness of cosmologically distant
quasars was far too high to be explainable
by nuclear fusion alone. This objection
was made moot by the improved models
of gravity-powered accretion disks which
for sufficiently dense material (such as
black holes) can be more efficient at
energy production than nuclear reactions.
The controversy was laid to rest by the
1990s when evidence became available
that observed quasars were actually the
ultra-luminous cores of distant active
galactic nuclei and that the major
components of their redshift were in fact
due to the Hubble flow.[12][13]

Throughout his career, Halton Arp

maintained that there were anomalies in
his observations of quasars and galaxies,
and that those anomalies served as a
refutation of the Big Bang.[10] In particular,
Arp pointed out examples of quasars that
were close to the line of sight of
(relatively) nearby active, mainly Seyfert
galaxies. These objects are now classified
under the term active galactic nuclei
(AGN). Arp criticized using such term on
the ground that it isn't empirical. He
claimed that clusters of quasars were in
alignment around cores of these galaxies
and that quasars, rather than being the
cores of distant AGN, were actually much
closer and were starlike-objects ejected
from the centers of nearby galaxies with
high intrinsic redshifts. Arp also
contended that they gradually lost their
non-cosmological redshift component and
eventually evolved into full-fledged
galaxies.[14][5][10] This stands in stark
contradiction to the accepted models of
galaxy formation.

The biggest problem with Arp's analysis is

that today there are hundreds of
thousands of quasars with known
redshifts discovered by various sky
surveys. The vast majority of these
quasars are not correlated in any way with
nearby AGN. Indeed, with improved
observing techniques, a number of host
galaxies have been observed around
quasars which indicates that those
quasars at least really are at cosmological
distances and are not the kind of objects
Arp proposes.[15] Arp's analysis, according
to most scientists, suffers from being
based on small number statistics and
hunting for peculiar coincidences and odd
associations.[16] Unbiased samples of
sources, taken from numerous galaxy
surveys of the sky show none of the
proposed 'irregularities', nor that any
statistically significant correlations
exist.[17]

In addition, it is not clear what mechanism

would be responsible for intrinsic redshifts
or their gradual dissipation over time. It is
also unclear how nearby quasars would
explain some features in the spectrum of
quasars which the standard model easily
explains. In the standard cosmology,
clouds of neutral hydrogen between the
quasar and the earth create Lyman alpha
absorption lines having different redshifts
up to that of the quasar itself; this feature
is called the Lyman-alpha forest. Moreover,
in extreme quasars one can observe the
absorption of neutral hydrogen which has
not yet been reionized in a feature known
as the Gunn–Peterson trough. Most
cosmologists see this missing theoretical
work as sufficient reason to explain the
observations as either chance or error.[18]

Halton Arp has proposed an explanation

for his observations by a Machian
"variable mass hypothesis".[19] The
variable-mass theory invokes constant
matter creation from active galactic nuclei,
which puts it into the class of steady-state
theories. With the passing of Halton Arp,
this cosmology has been relegated to a
dismissed theory.[20]

Plasma cosmology

In 1965, Hannes Alfvén proposed a

"plasma cosmology" theory of the universe
based in part on scaling observations of
space plasma physics and experiments on
plasmas in terrestrial laboratories to
cosmological scales orders of magnitude
greater.[21] Taking matter–antimatter
symmetry as a starting point, Alfvén
together with Oskar Klein proposed the
Alfvén-Klein cosmology model, based on
the fact that since most of the local
universe was composed of matter and not
antimatter there may be large bubbles of
matter and antimatter that would globally
balance to equality. The difficulties with
this model were apparent almost
immediately. Matter–antimatter
annihilation results in the production of
high energy photons which were not
observed. While it was possible that the
local "matter-dominated" cell was simply
larger than the observable universe, this
proposition did not lend itself to
observational tests.

Like the steady state theory, plasma

cosmology includes a Strong
Cosmological Principle which assumes
that the universe is isotropic in time as
well as in space. Matter is explicitly
assumed to have always existed, or at
least that it formed at a time so far in the
past as to be forever beyond humanity's
empirical methods of investigation.
While plasma cosmology has never had
the support of most astronomers or
physicists, a small number of plasma
researchers have continued to promote
and develop the approach, and publish in
the special issues of the IEEE Transactions
on Plasma Science.[22] A few papers
regarding plasma cosmology were
published in other mainstream journals
until the 1990s. Additionally, in 1991, Eric
J. Lerner, an independent researcher in
plasma physics and nuclear fusion, wrote
a popular-level book supporting plasma
cosmology called The Big Bang Never
Happened. At that time there was renewed
interest in the subject among the
cosmological community along with other
non-standard cosmologies. This was due
to anomalous results reported in 1987 by
Andrew Lange and Paul Richardson of UC
Berkeley and Toshio Matsumoto of
Nagoya University that indicated the
cosmic microwave background might not
have a blackbody spectrum.[23] However,
the final announcement (in April 1992) of
COBE satellite data corrected the earlier
contradiction of the Big Bang; the
popularity of plasma cosmology has since
fallen.
Alternatives and extensions
to Lambda-CDM
The standard model of cosmology today,
the Lambda-CDM model, has been
extremely successful at providing a
theoretical framework for structure
formation, the anisotropies in the cosmic
microwave background, and the
accelerating expansion of the universe.
However, it is not without its problems.[24]
There are many proposals today that
challenge various aspects of the Lambda-
CDM model. These proposals typically
modify some of the main features of
Lambda-CDM, but do not reject the Big
Bang.

Anisotropic universe

Isotropicity – the idea that the universe

looks the same in all directions – is one of
the core assumptions that enters into the
Friedmann equations. In 2008 however,
scientists working on Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe data claimed
to have detected a 600–1000 km/s flow of
clusters toward a 20-degree patch of sky
between the constellations of Centaurus
and Vela.[25] They suggested that the
motion may be a remnant of the influence
of no-longer-visible regions of the universe
prior to inflation. The detection is
controversial, and other scientists have
found that the universe is isotropic to a
great degree.[26]

Exotic dark matter

In Lambda-CDM, dark matter is an

extremely inert form of matter that does
not interact with both ordinary matter
(baryons) and light, but still exerts
gravitational effects. To produce the large-
scale structure we see today, dark matter
is "cold" (the 'C' in Lambda-CDM), i.e. non-
relativistic. Dark matter has not been
conclusively identified, and its exact nature
is the subject of intense study. The leading
dark matter candidates are weakly
interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and
axions.[27] Both of these are new
elementary particles not included in the
Standard Model of Particle Physics. A
major difference between the two is their
mass: WIMPs generally have masses in
the GeV range, while axions are much
lighter, with masses in the meV range or
lower.

WIMPs and axions are far from the only

dark matter candidates, and there are a
variety of other proposals, e.g.:
 Self-interacting dark matter, wherein
dark matter particles interact with
themselves.
Warm dark matter, which are more
relativistic than cold dark matter, but
less relativistic than the observationally-
excluded hot dark matter.
Fuzzy cold dark matter, which have
particles much lighter than axions – in
the 10−22 eV range.

Yet other theories attempt to explain dark

matter and dark energy as different facets
of the same underlying fluid (see dark
fluid), or hypothesize that dark matter
could decay into dark energy.
Exotic dark energy

The equation of state of Dark Energy for 4 common models as a function of redshift. Our current universe is at , and
the cosmological constant has .[28]
A: CPL Model,
B: Jassal Model,
C: Barboza & Alcaniz Model,
D: Wetterich Model

In Lambda-CDM, dark energy is an

unknown form of energy that tends to
accelerate the expansion of the universe.
It is less well-understood than dark matter,
and similarly mysterious. The simplest
explanation of dark energy is the
cosmological constant (the 'Lambda' in
Lambda-CDM). This is a simple constant
added to the Einstein field equations to
provide a repulsive force. Thus far
observations are fully consistent with the
cosmological constant, but leave room for
a plethora of alternatives, e.g.:

Quintessence, which is a scalar field

similar to the one that drove cosmic
inflation shortly after the Big Bang. In
quintessence, dark energy will usually
vary over time (as opposed to the
cosmological constant, which remains a
constant).
Inhomogeneous cosmology. One of the
fundamental assumptions of Lambda-
CDM is that the universe is
homogeneous – that is, it looks broadly
the same regardless of where the
observer is. In the inhomogeneous
universe scenario, the observed dark
energy is a measurement artefact
caused by us being located at an
emptier-than-average region of space.
Variable dark energy, which is similar to
quintessence in that the properties of
dark energy vary over time (see figure),
but different in that dark energy is not
due to a scalar field.
Alternatives to General
Relativity
General relativity, upon which the FRW
metric is based, is an extremely
successful theory which has met every
observational test so far. However, at a
fundamental level it is incompatible with
quantum mechanics, and by predicting
singularities, it also predicts its own
breakdown. Any alternative theory of
gravity would imply immediately an
alternative cosmological theory since
current modeling is dependent on general
relativity as a framework assumption.
There are many different motivations to
modify general relativity, such as to
eliminate the need for dark matter or dark
energy, or to avoid such paradoxes as the
firewall.

Machian universe

Ernst Mach developed a kind of extension

to general relativity which proposed that
inertia was due to gravitational effects of
the mass distribution of the universe. This
led naturally to speculation about the
cosmological implications for such a
proposal. Carl Brans and Robert Dicke
were able to successfully incorporate
Mach's principle into general relativity
which admitted for cosmological solutions
that would imply a variable mass. The
homogeneously distributed mass of the
universe would result in a roughly scalar
field that permeated the universe and
would serve as a source for Newton's
gravitational constant; creating a theory of
quantum gravity.

MOND

Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is

a relatively modern proposal to explain the
galaxy rotation problem based on a
variation of Newton's Second Law of
Dynamics at low accelerations. This would
produce a large-scale variation of
Newton's universal theory of gravity. A
modification of Newton's theory would
also imply a modification of general
relativistic cosmology in as much as
Newtonian cosmology is the limit of
Friedman cosmology. While almost all
astrophysicists today reject MOND in favor
of dark matter, a small number of
researchers continue to enhance it,
recently incorporating Brans–Dicke
theories into treatments that attempt to
account for cosmological observations.

Tensor–vector–scalar gravity (TeVeS) is a

proposed relativistic theory that is
equivalent to Modified Newtonian
dynamics (MOND) in the non-relativistic
limit, which purports to explain the galaxy
rotation problem without invoking dark
matter. Originated by Jacob Bekenstein in
2004, it incorporates various dynamical
and non-dynamical tensor fields, vector
fields and scalar fields.

The break-through of TeVeS over MOND is

that it can explain the phenomenon of
gravitational lensing, a cosmic optical
illusion in which matter bends light, which
has been confirmed many times. A recent
preliminary finding is that it can explain
structure formation without CDM, but
requiring a ~2eV massive neutrino (they
are also required to fit some Clusters of
galaxies, including the Bullet
Cluster).[29][30] However, other authors (see
Slosar, Melchiorri and Silk)[31] argue that
TeVeS can't explain cosmic microwave
background anisotropies and structure
formation at the same time, i.e. ruling out
those models at high significance.

f(R) gravity

f(R) gravity is a family of theories that

modify general relativity by defining a
different function of the Ricci scalar. The
simplest case is just the function being
equal to the scalar; this is general
relativity. As a consequence of introducing
an arbitrary function, there may be
freedom to explain the accelerated
expansion and structure formation of the
Universe without adding unknown forms
of dark energy or dark matter. Some
functional forms may be inspired by
corrections arising from a quantum theory
of gravity. f(R) gravity was first proposed in
1970 by Hans Adolph Buchdahl[32]
(although φ was used rather than f for the
name of the arbitrary function). It has
become an active field of research
following work by Starobinsky on cosmic
inflation.[33] A wide range of phenomena
can be produced from this theory by
adopting different functions; however,
many functional forms can now be ruled
out on observational grounds, or because
of pathological theoretical problems.

See also
Quantum cosmology

Notes
1. Brown, Michael J. I. (2013). "‘One funeral at
a time’: Big Bang denial and the search for
truth" (https://theconversation.com/one-fun
eral-at-a-time-big-bang-denial-and-the-searc
h-for-truth-11127) . The Conversation.
Retrieved 2 February 2021.
2. See the Planck Collaboration's 2015 data
release.

3. "Open Letter on Cosmology" (https://cosmo

logy.info/open-letter) . cosmology.info.

4. Hoyle, F., Home is Where the Wind Blows,

1994, 1997, 399–423

5. Burbidge, G., Hoyle, F. 1998, ApJ, 509 L1-L3

6. Wright, E. L. (20 December 2010). "Errors in
the Steady State and Quasi-SS Models" (htt
p://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/stdystat.ht
m) . UCLA, Physics & Astronomy
Department.

7. "Errors in Tired Light Cosmology" (http://ww

w.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm) .
ucla.edu.
 8. " "Tired-Light" Hypothesis Gets Re-Tired" (ht
tps://www.science.org/content/article/tired
-light-hypothesis-gets-re-tired) . Science. 28
June 2001. Retrieved 16 December 2016.

9. Segal, I.E., Nicoll, J.F., Wu, P., Zhou, Z. 1993,

"Statistically Efficient Testing of the Hubble
and Lundmark Laws on IRAS Galaxy
Samples", Astrophys. J. 465–484

10. Arp, H., Seeing Red, Redshifts, Cosmology

and Academic Science, 1998
11. Schneider; et al. (2007). "The Sloan Digital
Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. IV. Fifth Data
Release". The Astronomical Journal. 134
(1): 102–117. arXiv:0704.0806 (https://arxi
v.org/abs/0704.0806) .
Bibcode:2007AJ....134..102S (https://ui.ads
abs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AJ....134..102
S) . doi:10.1086/518474 (https://doi.org/1
0.1086%2F518474) . S2CID 14359163 (http
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9163) .
12. Antonucci, R. (1993). "Unified Models for
Active Galactic Nuclei and Quasars" (http
s://semanticscholar.org/paper/8ab80dcade
9676db68715175708c8e2558b178d2) .
Annual Review of Astronomy and
Astrophysics. 31 (1): 473–521.
Bibcode:1993ARA&A..31..473A (https://ui.a
dsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993ARA&A..31..47
3A) .
doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.31.090193.002353
(https://doi.org/10.1146%2Fannurev.aa.31.
090193.002353) . S2CID 7071314 (https://
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13. Urry, P.; Paolo Padovani (1995). "Unified
schemes for radioloud AGN". Publications
of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
107: 803–845. arXiv:astro-ph/9506063 (htt
ps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9506063) .
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14. Arp and others who agree with him have
been known to support the argument for a
varying non-cosmological redshift by
referring to a so-called "magnitude-redshift
discrepancy". When a Hubble's law-type
plot of quasar magnitudes versus redshift
is made, a graph with a diffuse scatter and
no clear linear relation is generated.
However, since absolute magnitudes can
only be independently calibrated to an
upper limit using size constraints from
variability and an Eddington luminosity, it is
likely that quasars are exhibiting differing
luminosities that cannot necessarily be
derived from such simplistic first principles.
Arp, Burbidge, and others maintain that the
scatter in these plots further supports the
 idea that quasars have a non-cosmological
component to their redshift, but nearly
everyone else in the field accepts that
quasars have variable luminosity.

15. The first instance of observing the host

galaxies around quasars was announced in
1983 by Gehren as published in the
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Liege
International Astrophysical Colloquium. pp.
489–493.

16. Overbye, Dennis (6 January 2014). "Halton

Arp, 86, Dies; Astronomer Challenged Big
Bang Theory" (https://www.nytimes.com/2
014/01/07/science/space/halton-c-arp-astr
onomer-who-challenged-big-bang-theory-di
es-at-86.html) . The New York Times.
17. Tang, Sumin; Shuang Nan Zhang (2008).
"Evidence against non-cosmological
redshifts of QSOs in SDSS data".
arXiv:0807.2641 (https://arxiv.org/abs/080
7.2641) [astro-ph (https://arxiv.org/archiv
e/astro-ph) ].

18. For a description of mainstream

cosmology's view of Arp's suggestions in
this regard see Jones, H. What makes an
astronomical controversy? Astronomy Now
Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 58–61 (2005).

19. Flat Spacetime Cosmology: A unified

framework for extragalactic redshifts in
Astrophysical Journal by J Narlikar and H
Arp (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1993Ap
J...405...51N)
20. "When he died, he took a whole cosmology
with him", said Barry F. Madore, a senior
research associate at the Carnegie
Observatories in Pasadena, Calif.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/scie
nce/space/halton-c-arp-astronomer-who-
challenged-big-bang-theory-dies-at-86.html

21. Hannes Alfvén, "On hierarchical cosmology

(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_
query?bibcode=1983Ap%26SS..89..313A&d
b_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&hig
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23. Michael Lemonick (2003). Echo of the Big

Bang. Princeton University Press. pp. 63–
64. ISBN 978-0-691-10278-8.

24. See Lambda-CDM model#Challenges.

25. A. Kashlinsky; F. Atrio-Barandela; D.
Kocevski; H. Ebeling (2009). "A
measurement of large-scale peculiar
velocities of clusters of galaxies: technical
details" (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/god
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S2CID 11185723 (https://api.semanticscho
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26. Daniela Saadeh (22 September 2016).
"Does the Universe look the same in all
directions?" (http://www.earlyuniverse.org/
does-the-universe-look-the-same-in-all-direc
tions/) . Retrieved 16 December 2016.

27. Another possibility is massive compact

halo objects (MACHOs), but observations
indicate that there are not enough MACHOs
to account for all dark matter.
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904401

28. by Ehsan Sadri Astrophysics MSc, Azad

University, Tehran
29. Dodelson, Scott; Liguori, Michele (2006). "
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Reidel Pub Co., 1981. ISBN 90-277-1151-
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External links and references

Narlikar, Jayant V. and T. Padmanabhan,
"Standard Cosmology and Alternatives: A
Critical Appraisal (http://adsabs.harvard.e
du/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2001ARA&A..3
9..211N) ". Annual Review of Astronomy
and Astrophysics, Vol. 39, pp. 211–248
(2001).
Wright, Edward L. "Cosmological Fads
and Fallacies: (http://www.astro.ucla.ed
 u/~wright/errors.html) " Errors in some
popular attacks on the Big Bang

Portals: Astronomy Physics

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