The following sections are organized to track the chronological
events in the history of our Universe (see figure
1), focusing on five defining moments in our current understanding
of the classical picture: 1) the Big Bang singularity and the
dynamics of the very early Universe; 2) inflation and its generic
nature; 3) the quark-hadron phase transition; 4) Big Bang
nucleosynthesis and the freeze-out of the light elements; and 5)
the decoupling or post-combination epoch and large scale
structure formation. This particular section summarizes some
results on the early Universe (the first four subjects) and a few
other topics in relativistic cosmology. The fifth item on the
late or post-combination epoch is reserved to a separate section
§
3
.
Figure 1:
A chronological timeline of events in the Universe. The main
cosmological epochs discussed in this review are the Big Bang
singularity at
t
=0, inflation at
secs, the quark-hadron phase transition at
secs, Big Bang nucleosynthesis at
secs, and the post-combination Universe where matter decouples
from radiation at
years and structures such as galaxies and clusters begin to form
at
years. (Image courtesy of Barry Sanders, LCA/NCSA.)