Physics 463, Spring 2007
Special Topics in Astrophysics: Theoretical Cosmology
The focus of this class will be structure formation and galaxy formation, primarily targeted at graduate students who are doing or are interested in research in cosmology. We will gloss over most of the smooth, early Universe (which is also covered in Physics 362 and 364) and concentrate on the late (ie, z<1100, and mostly z<20), clumpy Universe and the evolution of its contents.
This class aims to help you develop the skills and background to think like a working cosmologist, and to give you a good appreciation for the current status of the current cosmological paradigm, based on Lambda CDM, including its theoretical underpinnings, its important predictions, how it can be tested with observations, and some of the current controversies and puzzles.
I will assume you are familiar with undergraduate physics and with basic cosmological concepts, and that you are comfortable programming in your language of choice.
major topics:
- formation of large-scale structure
- formation and structure of dark matter halos
- galaxy clustering, the halo model, and halo occupation statistics
- galaxy formation and evolution
- cosmological probes & tests of LCDM