Lecture Notes in Cosmology

Provides an in-depth introduction to cosmology for beginners including open problems and very recent topics such as the synchronicity problem

Functional appendices contain the necessary physics background as a reminder to students making the book self-contained

Exercises in the text complete the derivations of the results, whose ideas and logical steps are carefully outlined

Auteur

Oliver F. Piattella, Núcleo Cosmo-UFES and PPGCosmo, Physics Department, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, ES, Brazil.

Résumé
"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)

Contenu
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 Green's functions.- Polarisation.- Thomson scattering.- Bibliography.- Subject Index.