Astronomy 8873: Cosmology and Structure Formation
Spring 2026

Handouts

• Course Syllabus

Lecture notes

All notes are in pdf.

• I. Observational Basis of the Standard Model
  Slides in pptx or pdf.
• II. General Relativity
  
• III. Homogeneous Cosmological Models: Geometry
  
• IV. Homogeneous Cosmological Models: Dynamics
  
• V. The Cosmic Microwave Background
  (updated 2/17).
• VI. Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
  Slide in pptx or pdf.
• VII. The Early Universe
  , updated 3/22/26, Turner/Gonzales History of the Universe
• VIII. Large Scale Structure: Observables and Linear Evolution
  ,.

Problem sets and short questions

• Short questions 1, gravitational redshift.
• Problem set 1, due 1/30, simple model of the DM halo.
• Short questions 2 (in class, 2/11), cosmic expansiom history.
• Problem set 2, due 2/13, cosmological parameters and their evolution.
• Short questions 3, mean free path before recombination.
• Problem set 3, due 3/2, big bang nucleosynthesis.
• Short questions 4, natural units.
• Problem set 4, due 3/23, WIMP dark matter freezeout.

External links

• A new way to visualize General Relativity. This video proposes an alternative to the conventional "rubber sheet" visualization of curved spacetime, one that better represents what is going on in GR.
• Supernova cosmology paper from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Collaboration. A follow-up paper using a revised calibration is here.
• Some papers on the Gunn-Peterson effect and Lyman-alpha forest (I can suggest many more if you are interested: Gunn and Peterson 1965, Hernquist et al. 1996, Peeples et al. 2010