The physics of dark sector, dark matter, dark energy and inflation

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The standard model of particle physics (SM) and general relativity (GR) are arguably the best tested and most successful scientific theories in history. They provide a coherent description of known physics observed on Earth, in the solar system, and in the stars. Together, they account in exquisite detail for the pattern of light elements forged in the early Universe during big bang nucleosynthesis and provide a solid framework to consider cosmological questions. Yet, precisely because we understand them so well, we are now certain that the SM and GR provide an incomplete description of our Universe. From cosmology, we now have strong evidence: (i) that the abundance of dark matter is roughly six times larger than the abundance of ordinary atoms; (ii) that an epoch like inflation occurred in the early Universe to seed the ripples that grew to form the structures in the Universe we observe today; (iii) that the Universe today is dominated by dark energy which is causing its expansion rate to increase rather than decrease.