Astronomy 8873: Cosmology and Structure Formation
Spring 2024

Handouts

• Course Syllabus
• Some notes on metrics
• Kolb \& Turner history of the universe (ask me for a copy)

Lecture notes

All notes are in pdf.

• I. Observational Basis of the Standard Model
• II. General Relativity
• III. Homogeneous Cosmological Models: Geometry (updated 2/5)
• IV. Homogeneous Cosmological Models: Dynamics (updated 2/12)
• V. The Cosmic Microwave Background
• VI. Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• VII. The Early Universe (updated 3/4)
• VIII. Linear Fluctuations (updated 3/20)
• IX. Large Scale Structure at Low Redshift (updated 3/24)
• X. Non-linear clustering, halos, and galaxies (updated 4/4)
• XI. CMB anisotropies (updated 4/16)
• XII. Inflation
• XIII. Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Problem sets

• Problem Set 1: Milne Cosmology (Solution available on Carmen)
• Problem Set 2: Cosmological Parameters and Their Evolution
• Problem Set 3: Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Problem Set 4: WIMP Dark Matter Freeze-out
• Problem Set 5: Spherical Collapse
• Problem Set 6: DESI and Cosmological Parameters
  Auxiliary files for PS 6
  • DESI paper
  • cosmodist2.py
  • desi.tbl1
  • desi.tbl2
  • desi.tbl1.ratio
  • desi.tbl2.ratio
  • desi_chisq.py

External links

• My 2015 lecture notes from ICTP cosmology school
• Particle Data Group reviews
• Paper on galaxies vs. subhalos (figure shown 4/10/24)
• Introduction to galaxy-halo connection (4/10/24)
• Wayne Hu's CMB web page (4/10/24)

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  Go to David Weinberg's Home Page

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  Updated: 2024 April 21[dhw]