Cover Picture: Astron. Nachr. 06/2023

Artistic representations of the cosmic contraction and expansion phases of the branch-cut universe evolution scenarios. On the left figure, the branch-cut universe evolves from negative to positive values of the imaginary cosmological time ti, circumventing continuously the branch-cut; no primordial singularity occurs, only branch points. On the right figure, the branch-cut and branch point disappear after the “realisation” of imaginary time by means of a Wick rotation, which is replaced here by the real and continuous thermal time (temperature), T. In this scenario, a mirrored parallel evolutionary universe, adjacent to ours, is nested in the structure of space and time, with its evolutionary process going backwards in the cosmological thermal time negative sector. Figures based on artwork by NASA / WMAP Science Team, available at https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/. The theoretical background of this cosmological scenario is described in the review by C.A. Zen Vasconcellos et al., e220079 in this issue.