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AS7009 Cosmology, 7.5 hp, Fall 2010

 

Literature:

Barbara Ryden, 2002, "Introduction To Cosmology",  Pearson Higher Education ISBN 0805389121 or 9780805389128

 

Contents:

The world models of general relativity, cosmic expansion, thermodynamics and nucleosynthesis in the early Universe, dark matter and dark energy, methods for measuring cosmological parameters, structure formation, the cosmic microwave background radiation, inflation.

 

Prerequisites:

Knowledge corresponding to the first two years of a Bachelor's degree in physics, or similar.

 

Examination:

Seminars, literature report and hand-in exercises.

 

Teacher:

Erik Zackrisson, ez(at)astro.su.se, phone: 08-5537 8556

 

Time:

November-December 2010

 


If you are interested in participating, please notify Erik Zackrisson as soon as possible!

 

Schedule (preliminary)

Date

Time

Room

Lecture/
Exercise session/
Seminar

Topics

To read

To turn in/prepare

Nov 2

10-12

FC61

Lecture 1

Course information

Course overview

Cosmic epochs

Chapter 1

 

Nov 4

10-12

FC61

Lecture 2

Cosmological principle

Cosmic expansion

General relativity

Metrics

Chapter 2 + first half of chapter 3

 

Nov 9

10-12

FC61

Lecture 3

Robertson-Walker metric

Proper distance

Cosmic dynamics

Second half of chapter 3 + chapter 4

 

Nov 15

10-12

FC61

Lecture 4

Dynamics with single and multiple components
Concordance cosmology
Fate of the Universe

Chapters 5 + 6

 

Nov 16

10-12

FC61

Lecture 5

Measuring cosmological parameters

Dark energy

Chapter 7

 

Nov 18

10-12

FC61

Exercise session I

Exercises 1-6

 

 

Nov 23

10-12

FC61

Lecture 6

Dark matter

Chapter 8

 

Nov 25

10-12

FC61

Lecture 7

Cosmic microwave background radiation

Chapter 9

 

Nov 25

13-15

FC61

Exercise session II

Exercises 7-12

 

Hand-in exercises 1-3

Nov 30

10-12

FC61

Seminar I

Common misconceptions about modern cosmology

 

See instructions for seminar I

Dec 2

10-12

FC61

Lecture 8

Big bang nucleosynthesis

The early Universe

Chapter 10

Hand-in exercises 4-6

Dec 7

10-12

FC61

Lecture 9

Inflation

Chapter  11

 

Dec 7

13-15

FC61

Lecture 10

Structure formation

Chapter 12

 

Dec 8

10-12

FC61

Exercise session III

Exercises 13-18

Session cancelled - solutions posted below!

 

Dec 14

 

 

 

 

 

Hand-in exercises 7-9

Written literature report

Dec 16

10-12

FC61

Seminar II

Strange Universe

 

See instructions for seminar II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 20

13-15

FC61

Oral reports

 

 

Oral literature report

           

Examination

·      Two seminars

·      Three sets of hand in-exercises

·      Written essay (minimum 3 pages) + oral presentation (10 minutes)

 

 

 Course material

·      Seminar instructions: I, II

·      Dataset for seminar II

·      Exercises (including hand-ins)

·      Lecture notes: L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7, L8, L9, L10

·      Solutions from exercise session 3

 

Errata

·      Lecture notes, L3: The table in the slide entitled “W and Geometry” appears empty due to some bug in the software converting Powerpoint to pdf. The entries in the “Energy density” column should read (from top to bottom): W0>1, W0<1 and W0=1. The entries in the “Curvature (geometry)” column should read (top to bottom): k=+1 (closed), k=-1 (open)  and k=0 (flat).

·      Lecture notes, L4: Slides 29 and 31 appear completely black in the hand-out versions, due to file conversion problems. Both of these are supposed to feature figure 6.3 (page 92) from the textbook. Slide 31 just indicates where the benchmark model is in this diagram.

·      In hand-in exercise 5, you should assume that the absolute magnitude of type Ia supernovae is MB = -19.6

 

Literature exercise topics already selected

·      Time travel

·      Parallel Universes

·      The topology of the Universe

·      Antimatter

·      Brane cosmology

·      Quasi-steady state cosmology

·      Primordial black holes

·      Reionization

·      CMBR anisotropies

·      Dark matter in galaxies