PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2018/2019
- Teacher
- PAOLO NATOLI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/05
Training objectives
- Understanding the accepted cosmological model and its relation to particle physics.
Prerequisites
- Special relativity, basic notions on general relativity and statistical mechanics (e.g., distributions for fermions and bosons). It may be useful, but by no means compulsory, to possess basic notions of classical field theory.
Course programme
- Basic cosmological equations for the background (6 hours)
Thermal history of the Universe, recombination, nucleosynthesis, neutrinos and thermal relics, in equilibrium and outside equilibrium (8 hours)
The Boltzmann equation for cosmic species (8 hours)
Initial conditions: physics of inflation (8 hours)
Inhomogenities and their cosmological equations (6 hours)
Anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (8 hours)
Statistics of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies, fundamentals of data analysis (4 hours) Didactic methods
- The course is organized in several lectures that will cover all required topics. Worked out examples and exercises will also be discussed, to support the learning process.
Learning assessment procedures
- Informal discussion before the final exam should help the student in gauging the comprehension level attained. The final exam is a colloquium, lasting about 45 minutes, usually divided between three questions. The exam will be aimed at verifying the competence level acquired, by means of discussions concerning the course material as well as specific examples of application of the theory. There is no written test.
Reference texts
- Scott Dodelson, Modern Cosmology, AP, 2003
At a more basic level: Barbara Ryden, Introduction to Cosmology, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016
