Astronomy 8873

Cosmology

Spring Semester 2014

M,W,F 9:10-10:05 am (ridiculous!)


Course Instructor: Prof. Krzysztof (Kris) Stanek

Office: 4003 McPherson Lab (fourth floor), 140 W. 18th Ave.


Lectures

For the first part of the course, we will be using an expanded, locally available (for free) version of Introduction to Cosmology by our own Barbara Ryden. I will be handing out the chapters as the class progresses.

Once we cover all the topics discussed in this text, we will discuss some additional topics in modern cosmology.

Additional reading for the whole course:

Distance measures in cosmology by David Hogg

Observational probes of cosmic acceleration by Weinberg et al. (2013) (to be discussed later in the course, time permitting).

Week 1, 2 and 3: Additional Reading

Hubble 1929: Expanding Universe

Harrison 1965: Olbers' Paradox (don't read the whole thing, just take a look)

Penzias & Wilson 1965: CMB discovery (very short paper)

Dicke et al. 1965: companion paper to Penzias & Wilson 1965

Expanding Space: the Root of all Evil? by Francis et al. (2007) (listed here so you know such discussions exist).

Measuring gravitational redshifts in galaxy clusters by N. Kaiser (2013): more fun with special and general relativity (again, by no means required reading).

Appearance of Relativistically Expanding Radio Sources by M. Rees (1966) (superluminal motion, discussed in many textbooks)

Paper suggestions for the last part of the course:

How do galaxies get their gas? (B. Curtis)

Constraints on local primordial non-Gaussianity from large scale structure

The Star Formation Rate in the Reionization Era as Indicated by Gamma-Ray Bursts (J. Tayar)

A Redetermination of the Hubble Constant with the Hubble Space Telescope from a Differential Distance Ladder (S. Villanueva)

Relative velocity of dark matter and baryonic fluids and the formation of the first structures (M. Fausnaugh)

A Measurement of the Damping Tail of the Cosmic Microwave Background Power Spectrum with the South Pole Telescope

Galaxy Clustering in the Completed SDSS Redshift Survey: The Dependence on Color and Luminosity

Precise relic WIMP abundance and its impact on searches for dark matter annihilation

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: baryon acoustic oscillations in the Data Release 9 spectroscopic galaxy sample (C. Lochhaas)

A Cosmic Microwave Background Lensing Mass Map and Its Correlation with the Cosmic Infrared Background (D. Stevens)

Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters (T. Holoien)

Detection of B-Mode Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background with Data from the South Pole Telescope

Cosmological parameter constraints from galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering with the SDSS DR7

Cosmological simulations with self-interacting dark matter - I. Constant-density cores and substructure

Planck 2013 results. XXII. Constraints on inflation

Improved cosmological constraints from a joint analysis of the SDSS-II and SNLS supernova samples


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Updated: Mon Jan 13 16:21:01 EST 2014