Cosmology has become a very active research field in the last decades thanks to the impressing improvement of our observational techniques which have led to landmark discoveries such as the accelerated expansion of the universe, and have put physicists in front of new mysteries to unveil, such as the quest after the nature of dark matter and dark energy. These notes offer an approach to cosmology, covering fundamental topics in the field: the expansion of the universe, the thermal history, the evolution of small cosmological perturbations and the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Some extra topics are presented in the penultimate chapter and some standard results of physics and mathematics are available in the last chapter in order to provide a self-contained treatment. These notes offer an in-depth account of the above-mentioned topics and are aimed to graduate students who want to build an expertise in cosmology.
Recenzijos
This wonderful book is full of pedagogical qualities. It provides an original and efficient approach to contemporary cosmology. I warmly recommend this book to all students who want to build an expertise in cosmology. (C. Gauthier, Mathematical Reviews, February, 2020)
Preface.- Notation.- Cosmology.- The expanding universe and its
content.- Cosmological observations.- Redshift.- Open problems in cosmology.-
The universe in expansion.- Newtonian cosmology.- Relativistic cosmology.-
Friedmann equations.- Solutions of the Friedmann equations.- Distances in
cosmology.- Thermal history.- Thermal equilibrium and Boltzmann equation.-
Short summary of thermal history.- The distribution function.- The entropy
density.- Photons.- Neutrinos.- Boltzmann equation.- Boltzmann equation with
a collisional term.- Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis.- Recombination and
decoupling.- Cosmological perturbations.- From the perturbations of the FLRW
metric to the linearised Einstein tensor.- Perturbation of the
energy-momentum tensor.- The problem of the gauge and gauge transformations.-
Normal mode decomposition.- Einstein equations for scalar perturbations.-
Einstein equations for tensor perturbations.- Einstein equations for vector
perturbations.- Perturbed Boltzmann equations.-General form of the perturbed
Boltzmann equation.- Force term.- The perturbed Boltzmann equation for CDM.-
The perturbed Boltzmann equation for massless neutrinos.- The perturbed
Boltzmann equation for photons.- Boltzmann equation for baryons.- Initial
conditions.- Initial conditions.- Evolution equations in the kn^Inflation.-
The flatness problem.- The horizon problem.- Single scalar field slow-roll
inflation.- Production of gravitational waves during inflation.- Production
of scalar perturbations during inflation.- Spectral indices.- Observational
results.- Examples of models of inflation.- Evolution of perturbations.-
Evolution on super-horizon scales.- The matter-dominated epoch.- The
radiation-dominated epoch.- Deep inside the horizon.- Matching and CDM
transfer function.- The transfer function for tensor perturbations.-
Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background.- Free-streaming.-
Anisotropies on large scales.- Tight-coupling and acoustic oscillations.-
Diffusion damping.- Line-of-sight integration.- Finite thickness effect and
reionization.- Cosmological parameters determination.- Tensor contribution to
the CMB TT correlation.- Polarisation.- Miscellanea.- Bayesian analysis using
type Ia supernovae data.- Doing statistics in the sky.- Appendices.- Thermal
distributions.- Derivation of the Poisson distribution.- Helmholtz theorem.-
Conservation of R on large scales and for adiabatic perturbations.- Spherical
harmonics.- Method of Greens functions.- Polarisation.- Thomson scattering.-
Bibliography.- Subject Index.
Oliver F. Piattella, Nścleo Cosmo-UFES and PPGCosmo, Physics Department, Federal University of Espķrito Santo, Vitória, ES, Brazil.
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