Cosmology

IUCAA - NCRA Graduate School

06 January - 28 February 2014

Things to remember:

• To contact me anytime, remember that my office number in NCRA is F236; the phone number is (020) 25719270. In case you want to contact me and do not find me in office, send me an email to tirth at ncra.tifr.res.in.
• Any information/updates/news about the course will be put up at the webpage http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in:8081/~tirth/Teaching/Cosmology/index.html. Make sure you check the webpage periodically.
• The course will consist of approximately 15 lectures (of 1.5 hours each) at the rate of 3 lectures per week. The lectures will be over by 14 February. In case we lose too many lectures because of holidays etc, we will hold extra lectures so that we can still finish by the same date.
• In order to find out if you are able to follow the lectures, there will be class tests every week. The tests will be of duration 10-15 minutes and will consist of short questions and/or multiple-choice questions.
• There will be one final examination (tentatively during the week 17-21 February) for the course. The exact format of questions in this examination will be decided later.
• In case you are interested in solving different kinds of problems related to the subject, I will put up several problem sheets in the course webpage. You are welcome to solve these problems as per your convenience. We can also arrange some tutorial sessions to discuss these. No weightage will be given to these problem sheets while evaluating the course.
• The evaluation procedure for the course is as follows: (i) If you get 40% or less in the final examination, you will fail the course irrespective of how well you have performed in the class tests. In this case, your final score will be equal to the score of either the final exam or the class tests, whichever is less. (ii) If you score more than 40% in the final examination, your final average score will be computed giving 50% weightage to the final exam and 50% to the class tests. If you score 40% or less, you will fail the course.

Course Outline:

• FRW metric and Friedmann equations
• Thermal history of the universe
• Perturbed universe
• Large-scale structure formation
• Intergalactic medium

Reading List:

• T. Padmanabhan, Theoretical Astrophysics, Volume III: Galaxies and Cosmology, Cambridge University Press
• J. A. Peacock, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press
• H. Mo, F. van den Bosch & S. White, Galaxy Formation and Evolution, Cambridge University Press