Cosmology & Galaxies

Course Web Site / Extended Syllabus

Syllabus: Short Version

Sections and Links

  1. Journal Club Reports for Both Cosmology and Galaxies Courses
  2. Cosmology Course
    1. Cosmology Introduction
    2. Cosmology Journal Club Reports
    3. Cosmology Lectures
  3. Galaxies Course
    1. Galaxies Introduction
    2. Galaxies Lectures
  4. Evaluation
  5. Grades posted by anonymous alias:
  6. Cosmology Articles: Significant/Useful Articles: See also arXiv-astro-ph/recent for the latest cosmology articles.
  7. Cahill 2017, tmpp.pdf, cosmic_a_fig1_gnu.pdf, cosmic_a_fig1_gnu_2019oct26.pdf, cosmic_a_fig2_gnu.pdf.
  8. Books & Reviews
  9. Course Resource Sites
  10. "A Redshift Lookup Table for our Universe", Sergey V. Pilipenko, 2013
  11. Astro Images
  12. Course Mottos
  13. Ken Lectures 2012 Fall
  14. University sites of interest
  15. Astro = Encyclopedia: Astronomy, Physics, Science, Technology, Etc.:
    Education Notes
    1. An Education Note on Bayesian Analysis

  1. Journal Club Reports for Both Cosmology and Galaxies Courses

    2. The usual daily plan is that yours truly will lecture for 40 minutes or so.

    Then we will have a break ofr 10 or so minutes.

    Then we resume with the journal club reports for 25 or so minutes:

    1. Typically a person (a student or the instructor) or maybe sometimes 2 persons will read enough of some current article on cosmology (for Ast727: Cosmology) or galaxies (for Ast729: Galaxies) to report something of the main results. You just need to get enough from the article to report something that you find interesting.
    2. The topics of cosmology and galaxies strongly overlap and, in fact, almost all galaxies topics can be considered cosmology though the the reverse is NOT true.
    3. The person reports on his/her article for 15 or so minutes with discussion. It often goes longer.
    4. If you are second person reporting and don't get a chance to talk because the first report dragged on, we just hold the report over the for next day.
    5. Yours truly keeps a list of cosmology and galaxies articles from arXiv that seemed somehow interesting: see Cosmology and Galaxies Articles: Significant/Useful Articles. You can use that list or find your own article.
    6. I suggest that you try to find short review articles or especially hot articles and avoid quantum cosmology which is a really deep for us, unless its quantum cosmology made easy.
    7. I'll just ask for volunteers on a day for the next day.
    8. Since there are typically 6 students and 1 instructor and about 30 lecture periods, we might each speak about 4 to 5 times or so, but there is no set number.
    9. Giving reports and participating the discussions is 20 % of grade and everyone gets that with a fair effort.
    10. The reports are intended to be low anxiety and maximum fun.

  2. Cosmology Course

    1. Cosmology Introduction

      2. This is the course website / extended syllabus for a course in cosmology.

      For nuts and bolts details of the course, see Syllabus: Short Version. For the official description, see Ast727: Cosmology.

      There might be some changes since the course still in development.

      The plan for the course is to cover a very easy intro cosmology book Liddle (2015) (by Andrew Liddle (1965--)) with some extensions. This allows us to build up from the bottom.

      You don't need to buy Liddle (2015) since you can read it online: ProQuest: Ebook Central: Liddle (2015).

      But we will also have journal club reports which makes us surf current research in cosmology. This allows us to build down from the top.

      We will never meet in the middle.

      The alternative is to grind through a solid textbook, but for non-specialists that would probably be unmemorable---and difficult for a non-specialist instructor.

      Note that the Cosmology Course is a good complement to Carl Haster's Ast734: Relativity and Gravitation: this is an easy course and that is hard course, but there is some overlap.

    2. Cosmology Lectures

      1. Cosmology 1: History of Cosmology: Homework 1, Solution 1
        1. In-class lecture: History of Cosmology: A online popular lecture. There are some notes with the images, but there is NO complete narrative. It gives an overview and it's traditional to start cosmology in the manner of Carl Sagan (1934--1996).
        2. Required reading:
          1. Ebook Liddle, Ch. 1.
          2. IAL 4: History of Astronomy to Newton (OK for what it is).
          3. IAL 26: The Discovery of Galaxies (OK for what it is).
          4. IAL 28: Galaxies (low-cal and a bit dated).
          5. IAL 29: The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (low-cal and a bit dated).
          6. IAL 30: Cosmology.
          Yours truly is vastly extending on Liddle, Ch. 1. I leave this all as reading. It is all easy, mostly qualitative stuff.
      2. Cosmos 2: Observational Overview and Other Stuff: Homework 2, Solution 2: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Lied online / Ebook / Liddle, Ch. 2, Liddle, Ch. 2. I leave this just as a reading. It is all easy, mostly qualitative stuff.
      3. Cosmos 3: The Friedmann Equation: Homework 3, Solution 3, Notes 3a, Notes 3b.
        Required reading: Lied online / Ebook / Liddle, Ch. 3.
      4. Cosmos 4: The Geometry of the Universe: Homework 4, Solution 4, Notes 4.
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 4.

        Exam 1 solutions: The questions are somewhat updated from the exam.

      5. Cosmos 5: Simple Cosmological Models: Homework 5, Solution 5, Notes 5: New.
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 5.
        Exam 1 solutions: Some questions have been corrected/improved since the test.
      6. Cosmos 6: Observational Parameters: Homework 6, Solution 6: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 6.
      7. Cosmos 7: The Cosmological Constant: Homework 7, Solution 7: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 7.
      8. Cosmos 8: The Age of the Universe: Homework 8, Solution 8:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 8.
      9. Cosmos 9: The Density of the Universe and Dark Matter: Homework 9, Solution 9:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 9.
      10. Cosmos 10: The Cosmic Microwave Background: Homework 10, Solution 10, Notes 10: New.
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 10.
        Final solutions: Some questions have been corrected/improved since the final.
      11. Cosmos 11: The Early Universe: Homework 11, Solution 11: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 11 / Liddle, Ch. 11: Direct link.
      12. Cosmos 12: Nucleosynthesis: The Origin of the Light Elements: Homework 12, Solution 12: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 12 / Liddle, Ch. 12: Direct link.
      13. Cosmos 13: The Inflationary Universe: Homework 13, Solution 13: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 13 / Liddle, Ch. 13: Direct link.
      14. Cosmos 14: The Initial Singularity: Homework 14, Solution 14: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 14 / Liddle, Ch. 14: Direct link.
      15. Cosmos 15: Overview: The Standard Model of Cosmology: Homework 15, Solution 15: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, Ch. 15 / Liddle, Ch. 15: Direct link.
      16. Cosmos 16: Structures in the Universe: Homework 16, Solution 16: which don't exist so far:
        Required reading: Liddle, AT 1-5: Also for completeness:
        1. Liddle, AT 1: Direct link: General Relativistic Cosmology.
        2. Liddle, AT 2: Direct link: Classic Cosmology: Distances and Luminosities.
        3. Liddle, AT 3: Direct link: Neutrino Cosmology.
        4. Liddle, AT 4: Direct link: Baryogenesis.
        5. Liddle, AT 5: Direct link: Structures in the Universe.
      17. Cosmos 17: Bayesian Analysis and Constraining Cosmological Models: Homework 17, Solution 17:
        Notes 17: New,Old.
        Required reading: Liddle, AT 6 / Liddle, AT 6: Direct link.
        Exam 1 solutions: Some questions have been corrected/improved since the test.

  3. Galaxies Course

    1. Galaxies Introduction

      2. This is the course website / extended syllabus for a course in galaxies.

      For nuts and bolts details of the course, see Syllabus: Short Version???. For the official description, see Ast729: Galaxies.

      There might be some changes since the course still in development.

      The plan for the course is to cover parts of Cimatti: Introduction to Galaxy Formation and Evolution: From Primordial Gas to Present-Day Galaxies (2020), $57.59 (see also Cimatti et al. 2019: ArXiv posted intro chapter) which seems to be fairly broad, gentle introduction to galaxies. This allows us to build up from the bottom.

      Cimatti is a required textbook and yours truly thinks it is a reasonable investment, but in many respects it will be dated in a few years and already must be a bit.

      But we will also have journal club reports which makes us surf current research in galaxies. This allows us to build down from the top.

      We will never meet in the middle.

      Note that the Galaxies Course and Cosmology Course are good complements to each other.

      This will be a relatively easy graduate course.

    2. Galaxies Lectures

  4. Evaluation

    5. The evaluation summary is in the table below. 

          __________________________________________________________________________
      Table:  Evaluations Items
      __________________________________________________________________________
      Item                  Percentage  Drops     Comment
                             of grade
      __________________________________________________________________________
      Readings                 0 %                For study
      Homeworks                0 %                The study guide
      journal club reports    20 %      2 drops   1 mark point each
      2 in-class tests        40 %      no drops
      comprehensive final     40 %      no drops
      extra credit             0 %                There is NO extra credit
      __________________________________________________________________________
    Explication of evaluation items:

    1. Readings are NOT marked but you should do them.
    2. Homeworks are the study guide. The solutions will posted when the homeworks are posted. Yours truly is making them up as we go along. Try really hard before looking at the solutions. Self-testing is the key to test preparations. Report any mistakes that you find.
    3. Journal club reports: ∼ 10 reports. We'll try to get everyone to have the same number of reports, but allow 2 drops if the number reports is not quite the same at the end of the semester.
    4. The in-class tests will be out of 50 marks and consist of two parts:
      1. 10 multiple-choice questions intended as easy warm-up questions worth 2 marks each.
      2. 3 full-answer questions worth 10 marks each. Two of these will be drawn from the homeworks, maybe cut-down a bit for test mise-en-scene. The third question will be new if yours truly can think of one.
    5. The final is 2-hour comprehensive final and will probably be 20 multiple-choice questions intended as easy warm-up questions worth 2 marks each and 5 or so full-answer questions with 3 or 4 drawn from the homeworks, maybe cut-down a bit for test mise-en-scene.

    Yours truly does NOT use a fixed scale for letter grades. I just draw my own lines where I see fit at the end of the semester.

    Until the end of the semester, I just use a curve which fixes the GPA at about 3.

    I don't use WebCampus. I just post grades under anonymous aliases.

    You can choose your own alias. It has to be absolutely NOT identifiable as anyone.

  5. Books & Reviews

    6. See Amazon books, Library Search, and NASA ADS search.

    1. Andrea Cimatti (Author), Filippo Fraternali (Author), Carlo Nipoti (Author), 2019, 582 pages, Cambridge Univ. Pres, "Introduction to Galaxy Formation and Evolution: From Primordial Gas to Present-Day Galaxies": It seems to cover cosmology at about the level of Liddle (2015), but also all of galaxy formation and evolution. It has NO problems. I've a copy and may use it in the future for both Ast727: Cosmology and Ast729: Galaxies.
    2. Coles, Peter; Lucchin, Francesco, 2002, 520 pages, "Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure": About the level for a grad course, but a bit dated.
    3. Mark H. Jones (Editor), Robert J. A. Lambourne (Editor), Stephen Serjeant (Editor), 2015, Cambridge - Open University, "An Introduction to Galaxies and Cosmology": More of undergraduate level and has problems.
    4. Kunze, Kerstin, 2016, arXiv, 36 pages, "An introduction to cosmology".
    5. Leclercq, Florent, et al. 2014, arXiv, 49 pages: "Cosmology: from theory to data, from data to theory": With Bayesian analysis.
    6. Andrew Liddle, 2015, "An Introduction to Modern Cosmology": See also Liddle (2015). You don't need to buy Liddle (2015) since you can read it online: ProQuest: Ebook Central: Liddle (2015). We can print from online. Are we allowed to print the whole thing over time? Maybe the server will let us, but 41 pages per user may be the legal limit.???? Can we use such printouts as a textbook for students?
    7. Mo, Houjun; van den Bosch, Frank; White, Simon, 2010, 840 pages, "Galaxy Formation and Evolution": See also Mo et al. Not at Library Search. See also stuff, stuff by Mo, and Bosch advertizement. It has NO problems.
    8. Ryden, Barbara, 2017, 300 pages, 4th year, "Introduction to Cosmology": 2nd edition well reviewed.
    9. Ta-Pei Cheng, 2010, 456 pages GR with some cosmology. Also Ta-Pei Cheng, 2015, 292 pages, "Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology: A Basic Introduction":
    10. Weinberg, Steven, 2008, 616 pages, "Cosmology": Really tough going, but great.
    11. Universe in Problems:
      1. Solutions of Friedman equations in the Big Bang model: Problem 23: Positive-curvature-matter universe: Exact solution a(eta),t(eta), where eta is conformal time.
      2. Solutions of Friedman equations in the Big Bang model: Matter and radiation: Problem 5: exact solutions for matter and radiation: No analytic solutions for a(t), but there is one for t(a) using Hudson-5,28. See also INTEGRALS CONTAINING THE SQUARE ROOT OF ax+b.
      3. Solutions of Friedman equations in the Big Bang model: Problem 18: age of the Universe
      4. Solutions of Friedman equations in the Big Bang model: Problem 23: closed dusty Universe, exact solution: Closed matter cosine universe.
      5. Solutions of Friedman equations in the Big Bang model: Problem 41: power-law cosmologies: Single power-law solutions.
      6. Evolution of Universe: Problem 13: The Matter-Cosmological Constant Universe Solution: See also SOLUTION OF THE FRIEDMANN EQUATION DETERMINING THE TIME EVOLUTION, ACCELERATION AND THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE (2007), Frank Steiner, p. 12.

  6. Course Resource Sites

    1. See also arXiv-astro-ph/recent for the latest cosmology articles.
    2. arXiv-quant-ph/recent
    3. Astronomy My own online astro encyclopedia: no longer updated since Wikipedia has long surpassed it.
    4. Astrophysical Journal (ApJ)
    5. Books
      1. Coles & Lucchin: Cosmology
      2. Mo: Galaxy Formation and Evolution
      3. Peacock: Cosmological Physics
    6. Eddie Baron's galaxies and cosmology course site
    7. Introductory Astronomy Web Lectures (IAWL) See, in particular, IAL: Cosmology.
    8. Christian Knobel Intro Cosmolgy, 2012 An introduction into the theory of cosmological structure formation, 2012, 102 pages. Seems good, current as of 2012.
    9. Lawden 2002 special relativity: Preface, Chapters 1--3. A good, quick introduction.
    10. Max Pettini: Physcial Cosmology Seems a good quick intro in pdf lectures which are probably intended to be much like real lectures. Seems to be current as of 2012.
      1. Basic Concepts
      2. Newtonian Cosmology
      3. Relativistic Cosmology
      4. World Models
      5. Redshifts and Distances in Cosmology
      6. The Hubble Diagram of Type Ia Supernovae: Evidence for a Cosmological Constant
      7. Large Scale Structure
      8. Clusters of Galaxies: Spherical Collapse and Virialization
      9. The Intergalactic Medium On reionization and all that.
      10. Absorption Line Formation and the Curve of Growth
      11. Physical Properties of Lyman Alpha Forest Clouds
      12. Cosmological Implications of the Lyman Alpha Forest. I: The Repository of Most of the Baryons
      13. The Ionizing Background
      14. Gravitational Lensing
      15. Weak Gravitational Lensing
      16. Observational Tests of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
    11. Mermin 1968 special relativity: Wow your friends with special relativity paradoxes and solutions.
    12. NASA ADS
    13. Nature
    14. Physics Links Look-up pages mainly. Not updated recently.
    15. Sean Carroll Lecture Notes on General Relativity, 1997
    16. Science
    17. Scientific American The inner circle SciAm.
    18. Wikipedia
      1. physical cosmology

  7. Astro Images

    1. Alien mesmerized by words Alien mesmerized by words.

      But as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.

    3. Earthrise Earthrise from Apollo 11, 1969jul16. Credit: NASA.

    4. Alien consigning math to the flames Well not quite.

    5. Aliens and Grades Beware of aliens bearing grades.

  8. Course Mottos

    9. Don't Panic.
    This is so cool.
    Unchain your inner nerd.
    In science, we are slaves to the truth---only error can set us free.

    Very reassuring I think.

  9. Ken Lectures 2012 Fall

    1. Historical intro similar to cosmology:
      1. IAL 4: The History of Astronomy to Newton Essentially, the history of cosmology from prehistory to Isaac Newton (1643--1727) including Newton's work.
      2. IAL 26: The Discovery of Galaxies A partial history of cosmology from Isaac Newton (1643--1727) to the 1920s.
      3. IAL 31: Cosmology Gives a brief history of cosmology in the 20th century.
      4. Wikipedia
        1. Wikipedia: Chronology of the universe
        2. Wikipedia: Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death Note that the left-hand vertical scale is tricky, for greater than about > 0, it is x=100*log(log(t_year)) and so t_year=10**(10**(x/100))).
        3. Wikipedia: Graphical timeline of the Stelliferous Era Note the vertical axis is tricky, but it was it says, log(y) where y is the number of years and then multiply by 10. Thus 10**6 years is 10*log(10**6)=10*6=60. Gollee as Gomer Pyle would say.
        4. List of cosmologists Sean, Ron, Avi, Saul, Adam, Brian, and Dave Schramm made the list, but not Ken and Bob.
        5. Wikipedia: Timeline of cosmological theories
    2. Friedmann equations and Elementary Solutions, Parameters of Cosmology, Cosmological Distance Measures:
      1. Christian Knobel Intro Cosmolgy, 2012, p. 9ff But Knobel expects you to know some general relativity before you begin. Gory.
      2. David Jeffery: Cosmological Distance Measures Explained It needs a lot of revision that it will probably never get.
      3. David Hogg: Distance Measures in Cosmology See also the article version Hogg, 2000, Distance Measures in Cosmology.
      4. Max Pettini 1: Basic Concepts
      5. Max Pettini 2: Newtonian Cosmology He derives the Friedmann equations from Newtonian physics plus special assumptions.
      6. Max Pettini 3: Relativistic Cosmology
      7. Max Pettini 5: Redshifts and Distances in Cosmology
      8. Sean Carroll Lecture Notes on General Relativity, 1997, Lecture 8, Cosmology But this is the end of his lectures, and so they assume you know all intro general relativity.
      9. Wikipedia
        1. angular diameter distance
        2. cosmological constant
        3. cosmological distance measures See graphs Wesino z ≤ 0.5, Wesino z ≤ 10**4
        4. cosmological redshift
        5. density parameter
        6. Friedmann equations
        7. Hubble's law
        8. luminosity distance
    3. Cosmological horizons:
      1. Christian Knobel Intro Cosmolgy, 2012 Section 1.4.3 is on horizons.
      2. Max Pettini: Redshifts and Distances in Cosmology
      3. Wikipedia
        1. particle horizon
        2. event horizon of the universe
    4. Thermal history of the observable universe:
      1. Max Pettini: The Intergalactic Medium On reionization and all that.
      2. Max Pettini: Large Scale Structure It has some stuff on recombination
      3. Wikipedia
        1. chronology of the universe
        2. recombination
        3. reionization
    5. Inflation and Particle Physics in Cosmology:
      1. Pralavorio 2013 Particle Physics and Cosmology, Les Houches
      2. Silverstein 2013 Les Houches lectures on inflationary observables and string theory, Les Houches
      3. Wikipedia
        1. Wikipedia: Inflation
        2. particle physics in cosmology
    6. Cosmological Structure Formation:
      1. Christian Knobel Intro Cosmolgy, 2012, p. 55ff on general relativistic treatment of linear structure formation.
      2. Christian Knobel Intro Cosmolgy, 2012, p. 29ff on Newtonian .
      3. Frenk & White (2012), Dark matter and cosmic structure A review with a historical perspective from the giants.
      4. Max Pettini: Large Scale Structure It has some stuff on Jeans instability.
      5. Wikipedia
        1. cosmic structure formation
        2. Jeans instability
        3. Silk damping
    7. Power Spectrum:
      1. Wikipedia
        1. CMB: Primary anisotropy There is a angular power spectrum plot.
        2. linear structure formation
        3. nonlinear structure formation
    8. Nonlinear Structure Formation
      1. Bernardeau 2013 The evolution of the large-scale structure of the universe: beyond the linear regime, Les Houches.
      2. Tinker et al. (2008) Toward a Halo Mass Function for Precision Cosmology: The Limits of Universality.
      3. Wikipedia
        1. Nonlinear Structure Formation
    9. Press-Schecter Formalism
      1. Press & Schecter (1974)
      2. Wikipedia
        1. baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO)
        2. Press-Schecter Formalism
        3. structure formation
        4. William H. (Bill) Press (1948--)
        5. Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich (1914--1987)
        6. Zeldovich pancake
    10. Galaxy Formation
      1. Coles & Lucchin, Ch16, p340ff
      2. Mo, p264ff
      3. Wikipedia
        1. Bremstrahlung (AKA free-free emission)
        2. galaxy cluster
        3. galaxy formation and evolution
        4. intracluster medium (ICM)
        5. intergalacit medium
        6. inverse Compton scattering
        7. large scale structure
    11. Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
      1. Coles & Lucchin, Ch17
      2. Mo, p302
      3. Max Petttini: Observational Tests of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, p17
      4. Peacock, Ch18
      5. Wikipedia
        1. cosmic microwave background (CMB)
        2. WMAP
    12. Galaxy Dynamics
      1. Wikipedia
    13. Gravitational lensing
      1. Wikipedia
          gravitational lensing

Maintained (if that is the word) by David J. Jeffery, Email: jeffery@physics.nhn.edu

This file was updated (but probably not for the last time) 2016sep20 Tuesday