Cosmology

This page covers the material for NS-374B (Observational and Theoretical Cosmology). All material may be used freely, but please credit this source.

The lectures follow the book by Barbara Ryden: Introduction to Cosmology and was partly inspired by the OpencourseWare by Alan Guth.

The lecture plan is as follows:

1 Introduction and Hubble's law

2 The FLRW metric and measuring H₀

3 Space-time curvature, Einstein and Friedmann's equations

4 Model universes: (dark) matter, radiation, curvature and a cosmological constant

5 Dark Matter

6 The Cosmic Microwave Background

7 Nucleosynthesis

8 A bit of Inflation and Large Scale Structure

9 Forming clusters, galaxies and stars

Slides can be found here: Slides.pptx, together with some (very) basic lecture notes

Problem sets of the tutorials are here (each consisting of 4+2+4 hours of classes):

Week 1: Introduction and Fundamental Observations (problems, solutions)

Week 2: FLRW metric and Friedmann equations (problems)

Week 3: Model universes and dark matter (problems, solutions)

Week 4: CMB and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (problems, solutions)

Week 5: Inflation and Large Scale Structure (problems)

There are two hand-in exercises for grading:

Week 2: Einstein Equations (problems, solutions)

Week 6: The WIMP miracle (problems, solutions)

The exam can be found here, with solutions.