| Course: | PH757 - Cosmology |
| Instructor: | Ewan Stewart |
| Web page: | http://profstewart.org/cos_grad/ |
| Time: | 4:30 - 6pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays |
| Place: | Room 1322 (physics) |
| Credits: | 3 |
| Evaluation: | attendance 30, class participation 30, problems 40 |
| Introduction | Introduction | syllabus, questionnaire, ... |
| Overview | units | |
| basic observed properties of the universe | ||
| brief history | ||
| General relativity | homogeneous and isotropic expanding universe | |
| perturbations | ||
| Early universe | Inflation | motivation and definition |
| types of inflation | ||
| quantum fields in de Sitter space | ||
| generating perturbations | ||
| Dangerous relics | topological defects | |
| moduli and thermal inflation | ||
| Necessary relics | baryogenesis | |
| dark matter | ||
| Middle universe | Nucleosynthesis (Kolb and Turner, chapter 4) |
nucleosynthesis |
| constraints from nucleosynthesis | ||
| Cosmic microwave background | isotropic background | |
| anisotropies | ||
| measuring cosmic parameters | ||
| Late universe | Observational cosmology (Peacock, part 5) |
matter in the universe |
| galaxies and their evolution | ||
| active galaxies | ||
| Galaxy formation and clustering (Peacock, part 6) |
dynamics of structure formation | |
| cosmological density fields | ||
| galaxy formation | ||
| Accelerating universe | supernova observations | |
| vacuum energy and the anthropic principle |
| Title: | The Early Universe |
| Authors: | Edward W. Kolb and Michael S. Turner |
| Published: | 1990, paperback 1993 |
| Publisher: | Addison-Wesley |
| Comments: | A classic but somewhat dated in certain aspects. Good for Thermodynamics, Nucleosynthesis, Phase Transitions and other less speculative aspects of the early universe. |
| Title: | Cosmological Physics |
| Author: | John A. Peacock |
| Published: | 1999 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Comments: | Written by an astrophysical cosmologist, it should be good for Observational Cosmology (Part 5) and Galaxy Formation and Clustering (Part 6) but should be avoided for the Early Universe (Part 4). |