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Abstract
This is the second of a two course series which starts with "General Relativity" and continues in the spring with "Theoretical Cosmology", where the focus will be on applying general relativity to cosmology as well as developing the modern theory of structure formation.
Objective
Learning the fundamentals of modern physical cosmology. This entails understanding the physical principles behind the description of the homogeneous Universe on large scales in the first part of the course, and moving on to the inhomogeneous Universe model where perturbation theory is used to study the anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the development of structure through gravitational instability in the second part of the course. Modern notions of dark matter and dark energy will also be introduced and discussed.
Content
The course will cover the following topics: - Homogeneous cosmology - Thermal history of the universe, recombination and nucleosynthesis - Dark matter and Dark Energy - Inflation - Cosmological Perturbation theory - Model of structure formation and initial conditions from Inflation - Cosmic microwave background anisotropies - Large scale structure and cosmological probes
Resources
Literature
The main of reference is: S. Dodelson and F. Schmidt: Modern Cosmology Other suggested textbooks: H.Mo, F. Van den Bosch, S. White: Galaxy Formation and Evolution S. Carroll: Space-Time and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity Other reference books: S. Weinberg: Gravitation and Cosmology V. Mukhanov: Physical Foundations of Cosmology E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner: The Early Universe N. Straumann: General relativity with applications to astrophysics A. Liddle and D. Lyth: Cosmological Inflation and Large Scale Structure