GR6005: Physical Cosmology Spring 2023 Instructor: Zoltan Haiman UNI: zh2007 Office: Pupin 1326 Phone: x4-6822 Teaching Assistant: TBD

TIME & PLACE:

Classes are held Mondays & Wednesdays, 2:40-3:55pm, currently scheduled in Pupin 414. A Zoom link will be provided for those who are unable to attend in person.

The primary goal of the course is to provide a foundation for concepts in physical cosmology.
The secondary goal is to introduce some current research topics.
After this class, you should be able to better appreciate the significance of papers appearing
on the subject on astro-ph.


There will be approximately four problem sets, and an open-ended final project.
There will not be any exams.


I do not plan to follow very closely any particular book, so all textbooks below are
recommended, rather than "required". They have been placed on reserve in the physics
library. We will rely most heavily on the first two of these (Peebles and Dodelson).
Additionally, I plan to use the brand book (0) by Baumann on a trial basis.


(0) ``Cosmology'' by Daniel Baumann (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
This is a brand new textbook, and therefore quite up-to-date, covering most
current research topics. It includes more advanced treatments of relativistic
perturbation theory, inflation, and cosmic microwave background anisotropies.
(1) ``Principles of Physical Cosmology'' by P.J.E. Peebles (Princeton University Press, 1993).
This is a comprehensive book that is still reasonably up-to-date, covering most
current research topics. It emphasizes physical concepts over formal derivations,
and focuses on the ``astrophysics'' of the universe during and after recombination.
(2) "Modern Cosmology" by S. Dodelson (Academic Press, 2003).
This book has a much more formal and up-to-date coverage, with detailed derivations,
of recent ``hot'' topics, such as linear perturbation theory, CMB anisotropies,
weak lensing, dark energy, and cosmological parameter estimation methods.
(3) ``The Early Universe'' by E.W. Kolb and M.S. Turner (Addison-Wesley, 1993).
This is another more formal book, although mostly without detailed derivations.
It focuses on particle physics aspects, and on the early universe before recombination.
(4) "Structure Formation in the Universe" by T. Padmanabhan (Cambridge University Press, 1995).
This book is intermediate between Peebles and Kolb & Turner in comprehensiveness
and in the level of formality. The parts beyond the basic material are a bit out
of date. However, the book is still quite useful, especially for topics in
non-linear structure formation.
(5) ``Galaxy Formation and Evolution'' by H. Mo, F. van den Bosch and S. White
(Cambridge University Press, 2010). This is a brand new book with a good summary
of the background cosmology, and with an up-to-date coverage of research topics in
galaxy formation
(6) "Cosmological Physics" by J. Peacock (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
This book is relatively more recent and comprehensive, with coverage of topics such as
gravitational lensing or active galaxies. It is formal, but is not self-contained.
We may occassionally use it as a reference.
(7) "An Introduction to Cosmology" by J. Narlikar (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
This book has a nice concise summary of general relativity (Chapter 2),
with a physically intuitive presentation; it also discusses alternative cosmologies.
(8) "Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity" by Sean M. Carroll (Addison Wesley, 2004).
This is a book on general relativity, rather than cosmology, but has an especially
illuminating discussion of the energy-momentum tensor (chap. 1.9) and a heuristic
derivation of Einstein's field equations (chap 4.2).
(9) "Introduction to Cosmology" by Barbara Ryden (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017).
This is a very clearly written recent book, at a lower lever - intended more for
senior undergraduates. However, it contains several simple and easy-to-follow
derivations, which I intend to use.





The above is tentative and subject to change (your inputs are welcome!).

I. OBSERVATIONAL/HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
1/18	The Standard Model: Summary	Peebles 1,2; Dodelson 1; [slides]
1/23	The Standard Model: Observational Support	Peebles 6; Dodelson 1; [slides], [DETF Report]
1/25	Visible Matter: Galaxies and Large-Scale Structures	Peebles 3; Peacock 13; [slides]
1/30	Evidence for Dark Matter in galaxies	Peebles 18; Dodelson 2.4; Peacock 12.3
2/1	Evidence for Dark Matter in halos and in clusters; gravitational lensing	Peebles 18; Dodelson 2.4; Peacock 12.3
II. THE SMOOTH UNIVERSE: EXPANSION HISTORY
2/6 HW1 out	Review of GR	Narlikar 2.1-2.5; Peebles 8,9; Carroll 3.6-3.7
2/8	Review of GR (cont'd)	Einstein's original 1916 paper is surprisingly pedagogical and accessible)
2/13	Geometry and the Robertson-Walker Metric	Peacock 3.1; Kolb & Turner 2
2/15	Newtonian limits of GR	Narlikar 2.9, Carroll 4.2
2/20 HW1 due	Friedmann Equation, Stress-Energy Tensors	Carroll 1.9, 4.1-4.2, Peebles 4,5,10
2/22 HW2 out	Equations of State	Carroll 1.9, 4.1-4.2, Peebles 4,5,10
2/27	Single Component Solutions of the Friedmann Equation	Kolb & Turner 3.1-3.2
3/1	Cosmological Tests, Dark Energy	Peebles 13, notes
3/6	Multi-Component Solutions of the Friedmann Equation	Kolb & Turner 3.1-3.2
3/8 HW2 due, Project out	Multi-Component Solutions of the Friedmann Equation (cont'd)	Kolb & Turner 3.1-3.2
3/13	No class - Spring Break	-
3/15	No class - Spring Break	-
III. THE SMOOTH UNIVERSE: PHYSICAL EVOLUTION
3/20	Thermal History	Peebles 6; Kolb & Turner 3.3-3.5 and 5.1-5.4
3/22	Big Bang Nucleosynthesis	Kolb & Turner 4
3/27	Recombination	Peebles 6
3/29 HW3 out	Puzzles in Standard Model	Ryden 11.1-11.4; Kolb & Turner 8.1
4/3	Inflation as a Solution	Ryden 11.1-11.4; Kolb & Turner 8.1
4/5	Physics of Inflation: Phase Transitions + Scalar Field Dynamics	Peebles 17; Kolb & Turner 8.2, 8.3 (also 7.1.1)
4/10	The Origin of Density Perturbations	Peebles 17; Peacock 10.4
IV. LINEAR PERTURBATIONS
4/12 HW3 due	Linear Evolution	Padmanabhan 4.1, 4.2, 4.6
4/17 HW4 out	Power Spectrum	Padmanabhan 4.7 and 5.1-5.3; Kolb & Turner 9.3
4/19	CMB Anisotropies	Dodelson 8; Tour of CMB Physics
4/24	Weak Gravitational Lensing	Dodelson 10
V. NONLINEAR EVOLUTION AND GALAXY FORMATION
4/26	Spherical Collapse and the Press-Schechter Halo Mass function	Padmanabhan 8
5/1 HW4 due, Project due	Press-Schechter Halo Mass function	Padmanabhan 5.8 & Peacock 17.2