Physical Foundations of Cosmology

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Hot universe and nucleosynthesis (Chapter 3) 411

McCrea, W., Milne, E. Newtonian universes and the curvature of space.Quarterly Journal
of Mathematics, 5 (1934), 73. Newtonian treatment of an expanding, matter-dominated
universe (see Section 1.2).
Milne, E., A Newtonian expanding universe.Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, 5 (1934),



  1. For some reason, Milne was uncomfortable with General Relativity and the idea
    of curved spacetime. Therefore, he suggests an expanding cloud of dust in Minkowski
    spacetime as an alternative to the expanding curved spacetime (Section 1.3.5).
    Penrose, R. Conformal treatment of infinity.Relativity, Groups and Topology, eds. C. and
    B. DeWitt, (1964) p. 563, New York: Gordon and Breach. Describes how ordinary
    topologically trivial asymptotically flat four-dimensional spacetime can be embedded
    (in a non-obvious way) in a compact extension.
    Carter, B. The complete analytic extension of the Reissner–Nordstrom metric in the special
    casee^2 =m^2 .Physics Letters, 21 (1966), 23; Complete analytic extension of the
    symmetry axis of Kerr’s solution of Einstein’s equations.Physical Review, 141 (1966),

  2. The systematic use of conformal diagrams is introduced for geometries with
    nontrivial global structure.


Hot universe and nucleosynthesis (Chapter 3)


Gamov, G. Expanding universe and the origin of elements.Physical Review, 70 (1946), 572;
The origin of elements and the separation of galaxies.Physical Review, 74 (1948), 505.
The hot universe is proposed to solve the nucleosynthesis problem.
Doroshkevich, A., Novikov, I. Mean density of radiation in the metagalaxy and certain prob-
lems in relativistic cosmology.Soviet Physics–Doklady, 9 (1964), 11. “Measurements
in the region of frequencies 109 − 5 × 1010 cpsare extremely important for experi-
mental checking of Gamov theory.... According to the Gamov theory, at present time
it should be possible to observe equilibrium Planck radiation with a temperature of
1–10 K.” The paper was not noticed by experimentalists and the cosmic background
radiation was discovered accidentally the same year by A. Penzias and R. Wilson.
Hayashi, C. Proton–neutron concentration ratio in the expanding universe at the stages
preceding the formation of the elements.Progress in Theoretical Physics, 5 (1950),



  1. The role of weak interactions in keeping the protons and neutrons in chemical
    equilibrium is noted and the freeze-out concentration of the neutrons calculated.
    Alpher, R., Herman, R. Remarks on the evolution of the expanding universe.Physical Re-
    view, 75 (1949), 1089. Estimate of the expected temperature of a hot universe. Alpher,
    R., Follin, J., Herman, R. Physical conditions in the initial stages of the expanding
    universe.Physical Review, 92 (1953), 1347. The calculation of the abundances of the
    light elements beginning with correct initial conditions for the neutron-to-proton ratio.
    Wagoner R., Fowler W., Hoyle F. On the synthesis of elements at very high temperatures.
    Astrophysical Journal, 148 (1967), 3. Contains the modern calculations of the element
    abundances. The computer programs used today to calculate the primordial abundances
    are based on the (modified) Wagoner code.
    Shvartsman, V. Density of relict particles with zero rest mass in the universe.JETP Letters,
    9 (1969), 184. The influence of extra relativistic species on primordial nucleosynthesis
    is noted and it is pointed out that one can obtain bounds on the number of relativistic
    species present at the epoch of nucleosynthesis.
    Zel’dovich, Ya., Kurt, V., Sunyaev, R. Recombination of hydrogen in the hot model of
    the universe.ZhETF, 55 (1968), 278 (translation inSoviet Physics JETP, 28 (1969),
    146); Peebles, P.J.E. Recombination of the primeval plasma.Astrophysical Journal,

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