ASTR 5770 Fall 2018 Texts

ASTR 5770 Cosmology Fall 2018: Texts

The lectures in this course will be based to a considerable extent on the proto-book

Some hand-written notes:

The lectures will also use Scott Dodelson (2003) “Modern Cosmology”, Academic Press, 440 pages. This is a superb, pedagogically written, graduate level exposition of the pillars of modern cosmology, especially the Cosmic Microwave Background. If you want to learn the subject, this is the book. Scott tells me that an updated version of the book is planned for 2019.
Scott Dodelson (2017) “Gravitational Lensing”, Cambridge University Press, 224 pages. Another good resource. Gravitational lensing sees mass regardless of whether the mass is bright (stars) or not (dark matter), which makes it a powerful probe of dark matter in the Universe.
T. Padmanabhan (2010) “Gravitation: Foundations and Frontiers”, Cambridge University Press, 700 pages, includes chapters on the CMB power spectrum.
David H. Lyth & Andrew R. Liddle (2009) “The Primordial Density Perturbation”, Cambridge University Press, 497 pages.
Steven Weinberg (2008) “Cosmology”, Oxford University Press, 593 pages. I get the impression that Weinberg is focused more on teaching himself than the reader as he cranks through all the equations in gory detail. On the other hand Weinberg is comprehensive, and his views are magisterial. For example, on page 476 he addresses how quantum fluctuations must somehow decohere to become the classical fluctuations we see today, an issue I have not seen mentioned in any other text.

Updated 2018 Dec 15