Cosmology II

Astro 321
MF 3:00-4:30 ERC 583
First Meeting: 1/6
Last Meeting: 3/6

This course will complement Ast 310 by providing more detail on theoretical aspects of cosmology (first half) and more topical issues of interest (second half)

The first half will be lecture based and cover

• FRW geometry vs dynamics and dark energy
• Kinetic theory and thermal history
• Relativistic perturbation theory and ADM
• Inflationary perturbations: canonical and EFT
• CMB and LSS

The second half will have special topics presentations

Fellows

• Feb. 17: Baryogenesis, Andrew Long
• Feb. 20: Galaxy Clusters, Sebastian Bocquet
• Feb. 23: Dark Energy and EFT, Marco Raveri
• Feb. 27: Gravitational Lensing, Doug Applegate

Students

• Mar. 3: Cosmology with Gravitational Wave Detectors, Maya Fishbach
• Mar. 3: Progress in CMB Detection, Amy Tang
• Mar. 9: Test Gravity, Mengxiang Lin
• Mar. 9: Cosmological Simulation, Huanqing Chen
• Mar. 9: Primordial Nongaussianity, Sam Passaglia
• Mar. 10: Red Sequence Evolution, Gourav Khullar
• Mar. 10: On Separate Universes, Dimitrios Tanoglidis

Prerequisites

Ast 310 or equivalent; basic general relativity

Requirements

Final Project (presented in class): choose from

• Numerical project in groups of 3 or fewer; or
• Individual reading project