Early Universe & Present Large Scale Structure, Part 2: Dark matter, inflation & cosmography

This is the second part of a two-part series of articles on the early phases of the universe and their relation to its presently observed large scale structure. In the first part, the history of the universe within the big bang model from the Planck epoch to the present was set out briefly, touching on the observed large scale structure in the universe at the end. In this second part, the evidence for dark matter on various scales is first reviewed. A brief nontechnical description of inflation (i.e., exponential expansion in the earliest phases of big bang) is then given. An inflationary big bang model, together with enough non-baryonic dark matter to give flat space, solves the horizon & flatness problems, yet predicting the right light ekement abundances from big bang nucleosynthesis. Finally the various cosmographics methods used to quantitatively specify the large scale structure in the universe from astronomical surveys and the results obtained are described. At the end, the main points made in both the parts are recapitulated.