Lecture Notes in Cosmology

Description

Cosmology has become a very active research field in the last decades thanks to the impressing improvement of our observational techniques which have led to landmark discoveries such as the accelerated expansion of the universe, and have put physicists in front of new mysteries to unveil, such as the quest after the nature of dark matter and dark energy. These notes offer an approach to cosmology, covering fundamental topics in the field: the expansion of the universe, the thermal history, the evolution of small cosmological perturbations and the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Some extra topics are presented in the penultimate chapter and some standard results of physics and mathematics are available in the last chapter in order to provide a self-contained treatment. These notes offer an in-depth account of the above-mentioned topics and are aimed to graduate students who want to build an expertise in cosmology. Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii Cosmology (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 1-16 The Universe in Expansion (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 17-53 Thermal History (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 55-115 Cosmological Perturbations (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 117-155 Perturbed Boltzmann Equations (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 157-191 Initial Conditions (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 193-210 Stochastic Properties of Cosmological Perturbations (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 211-234 Inflation (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 235-271 Evolution of Perturbations (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 273-308 Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 309-364 Miscellanea (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 365-378 Appendices (Oliver Piattella)....Pages 379-412 Back Matter ....Pages 413-418