Astronomy 688R: Spring 2008
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Cosmology
The evolution of the universe from the "Big Bang" to the formation of stars and galaxies.
Schedule
Instructor: Massimo Ricotti
Class: room CSS 0201
Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday
from 12:30pm to 1:45pm
First class: Tuesday Jan 29
Last class: Tuesday May 13
Final exam: Tuesday, May 20 (1:30-3:30pm)
Contact info and Notes
I will produce lecture notes during the semester and will keep them in a folder in the Astronomy Library. If you need help or have questions you can reach me here:
- Office: room CSS 0213
- E-mail: ricotti at astro dot umd dot edu
- Phone: (301) 405 5097
- Office hours: any time ... stop by or send me an e-mail to arrange a meeting
- Class web page: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ricotti/teaching/ASTR688s08.html
New!! Scanned Notes of the Course
I have scanned my handwritten notes and HW solutions and published them in PDF format. In order to avoid creating files that are too large I have created 7 separate files. Enjoy.
Of Course this is also the appropriate time and place to remind you to complete the online course evaluation . It is considered important for tenure promotion but a meaningful evaluation of the course should be based on more than one or two student's evaluations (happened before :). Thanks!
- NOTES_part1
- NOTES_part2
- NOTES_part3
- NOTES_part4
- NOTES_part5
- NOTES_part6
- NOTES_part7
- Era of ``non-standard'' particle physics: Friedman-Leimatrie cosmology, Hubble law, redshift, inflation, perturbations from inflation, reheating and baryogenesis
- Era of ``standard'' particle physics: Kinetic theory in the expanding universe, equilibrium thermodynamic, neutrino decoupling, non-baryonic matter, thermal history, primordial nucleosynthesis, CMB spectrum, recombination and decoupling, linear growth of cosmological perturbations
- CMB anisotropies: linear theory
- CMB: beyond linear theory, measuring cosmological parameters
- Large scale structure and galaxy formation: Top-hat collapse, large scale structure formation (simulations and theory), Press-Schechter formalism, first stars and galaxies, Lyman-alpha forest and reionization, density profile of dark matter halos, unsolved problems.
- Required:
- "Cosmology" by Peter Cole and Francesco Lucchin
- Recommended:
- "Cosmological Inflation and Large-Scale Structure" by Andrew R. Liddle, David H. Lyth
- Homework 25%
- Class project 15%
- Midterm Exam 30%
- Final Exam 30%
- Final exam Tuesday, May 20 (1:30-3:30pm)
- Detecting Dark Matter with GLAST by Eric Winter
- Baryogenesis by P.S. Bhupal Dev
- Cosmological Particle Creation: A Quantum Field Theoretic Perspective by Ryan Behunin
- Gravitational Waves from Inflation by Sergey Kurennoy
- Primoridal Black Holes by Josh Goldstein
- Reionization of the Intergalactic Medium: What is it and when did it occur? by Hannah Krug
- Feedback in the Early Universe by George Jithin
- Early Preheating as Global Feedback. and the Resulting Luminosity Function by Jamie Cohen
- Gravitational Waves from a Cosmological Distribution of SourcesR occur? by Sidharth Kumar
- A Selection of Dark Matter Candidates by Holly Sheets
- Probing the Dark Ages with 21cm Absorption by Emil Polinsensky
- Homework#1 (due Feb 14th)
- Homework#2 (due March 4th) Solution
- Homework#3 (due March 24th[after a deadline extension]) Solution
- Homework#4 (due April 17th) Solution
- Final Project due May 13th
- Final exam Tuesday, May 20 (1:30-3:30pm) (same room)
- Final Exam ...... Solution
Course Description
Part I: Linear Universe - 19 lectures.
Part II: Non-linear Universe (extragalactic astronomy) - 9 lectures
Textbooks
Course Grading
There will be one in-class Midterm exam and an in-class Final. Class participation is strongly encouraged but will not affect the grading. Class attendance is instead required and may affect the grading.
Policies and course
You can download the Syllabus in pdf format Syllabus.pdf or read the html version Syllabus.html
.Lecture homework and project:
During the semester I will hand out 4-5 homework. Each of you will write a review paper or a web page on a cosmology topic of your choice. At the end of the semester you will give a short presentation.