The Young Universe: Primordial Cosmology

Description

The Young Universe presents four major physical and astrophysical themes related to these extreme phases of the primordial universe. In particular, it presents the physics of the primordial plasma and the concepts of quantum and particle physics necessary to describe this extreme state. It discusses the cosmological background radiation and explores inflation, an extremely rapid expansion phase that is believed to have occurred very early in cosmological history and to have shaped our present universe. The book also provides a synthesis of the dark matter problem. Cover Half-Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Chapter 1. A Thermal History of the Universe and Primordial Nucleosynthesis 1.1. A quick overview 1.1.1. A useful refresher of the Friedmann Lemaître model 1.1.2. The major events of the Big Bang 1.2. Gamow’s ylem 1.2.1. Introductory remarks 1.2.2. Numerical density 1.2.3. Energy density and pressure 1.2.4. Entropy density 1.2.5. Effective degrees of freedom of the ylem 1.2.6. Numerical developments 1.3. Cooling kinetics 1.3.1. Planck mass 1.3.2. Relation between scale factor and temperature 1.3.3. Relation between cosmic time and temperature 1.4. Thermal decoupling of neutrinos 1.4.1. The concept of cross-section 1.4.2. Thermal equilibrium breaking 1.4.3. The neutrinic fossil radiation 1.4.4. The Cowsik and McClelland limit 1.5. Primordial nucleosynthesis 1.5.1. Transmutation between protons and neutrons 1.5.2. Breaking of the neutron–proton equilibrium 1.5.3. The formation of deuterium 1.5.4. The cooking of light elements 1.6. Chemical decoupling of heavy particles 1.6.1. Evolutionary equation 1.6.2. Approximate solution 1.6.3. Relic density 1.6.4. The Lee and Weinberg limit 1.7. Dissipation of the primordial fog 1.7.1. Saha’s equilibrium 1.7.2. Photoionization and recombination of neutral hydrogen 1.7.3. Lyman-alpha line and atomic resonance 1.7.4. The three-level atom model 1.7.5. Recombination of the primordial plasma and residual ionization 1.8. References Chapter 2. Cosmological Microwave Background 2.1. Introduction 2.1.1. Last scattering surface 2.1.2. CMB anisotropies 2.1.3. Conventions 2.2. Revisiting the Thomson scattering 2.2.1. Scattering rate 2.2.2. Optical depth 2.2.3. Visibility function 2.2.4. Diffusion length 2.3. Linear cosmological perturbations 2.3.1. Why linear perturbations? 2.3.2. Classification of perturbations 2.3.3. Comoving Fourier space 2.3.4. Linearized Einstein equation 2.3.5. Species present in the standard cosmological model 2.3.6. General equations of motion 2.4. Formal description of temperature anisotropies 2.4.1. Photon propagation 2.4.2. Temperature anisotropy in a given direction 2.5. Stochastic theory of cosmological perturbations 2.5.1. Initial conditions 2.5.2. Power spectrum and transfer functions 2.5.3. Spectrum of temperature anisotropies 2.6. Physics of temperature anisotropies 2.6.1. Line-of-sight integral in Fourier space 2.6.2. Perturbation evolution 2.6.3. Contributions to the temperature spectrum 2.6.4. Dependency on cosmological parameters 2.7. Other contributions and observables 2.7.1. Overview of CMB polarization 2.7.2. CMB gravitational lensing 2.7.3. Overview of the role of gravitational waves 2.7.4. Astrophysical foreground 2.7.5. Spectral distortions 2.8. CBM observations 2.8.1. Current observations 2.8.2. Future observations 2.9. References Chapter 3. Cosmological Inflation 3.1. Overview 3.2. Introduction 3.2.1. Shortcomings of the Hot Big Bang model 3.2.2. The mechanism of inflation 3.3. Single-field slow-roll inflation 3.3.1. Homogeneous dynamics 3.3.2. Dynamics of fluctuations 3.4. The physics of inflation beyond toy models 3.4.1. Ultraviolet sensitivity 3.4.2. Multifield effects 3.5. Primordial non-Gaussianities 3.5.1. Overview 3.5.2. Determining primordial non-Gaussianities 3.5.3. Non-Gaussian shapes 3.6. Conclusion 3.7. References Chapter 4. Dark Matter 4.1. Introduction 4.1.1. Subject presentation 4.1.2. Brief historical overview 4.1.3. Current interest in the subject 4.1.4. Warning 4.1.5. Summary of evidence in favor of dark matter 4.2. At the galaxy scale 4.2.1. Introduction 4.2.2. Spiral galaxy rotation curves 4.2.3. Velocity dispersion in elliptical galaxies 4.2.4. Application to the gravitational case 4.2.5. Dwarf spheroid galaxies 4.2.6. Our Galaxy 4.2.7. Density profiles 4.3. At the galaxy cluster scale 4.3.1. Velocity dispersion 4.3.2. Hot gas X-ray 4.3.3. Gravitational lenses 4.3.4. The Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect 4.4. Cosmology 4.4.1. Geometry of the universe 4.4.2. Primordial nucleosynthesis 4.4.3. The formation of large structures 4.5. The nature of dark matter 4.5.1. Baryonic candidates 4.5.2. Gravity microlensing 4.5.3. Particles 4.6. Detection 4.6.1. Direct detection 4.6.2. Indirect detection 4.6.3. Clumps 4.7. Modified dynamics and gravity 4.7.1. MOND theory 4.7.2. The Bullet Cluster 4.8. Conclusion 4.9. References List of Authors Index EULA