Bharat Ratra
He research focuses on developing and testing cosmological models for the large-scale matter and radiation distributions in the universe.
A primary goal is to test Einstein\'s general relativity on extremely large spatial- and temporal-scales, inaccessible to any other method. More immediate goals include determining the geometry and contents of the universe and how large-scale structure in the universe was formed. The cosmological models studied include currently popular ones that are spatially open, or spatially flat and dominated by quintessence, a time-variable cosmological `constant\' (both developed in collaboration with Jim Peebles). Of particular interest are the predictions these models make for the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) anisotropy.
