Difference between revisions of "Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology"

Revision as of 14:38, 10 January 2017

Elements of general relativity. Physics of pulsars, cosmic rays, black holes. The cosmological distance scale, elementary cosmological models, properties of galaxies and quasars. The mass density and age of the universe. Evidence for dark matter and dark energy and concepts of the early universe and of galaxy formation. Reflections on astrophysics as a probe of the extrema of physics.

Logistics

Syllabus
Class Repository: http://github.com/AaronParsons/astro161
C161 on BCourses
Main Text: Ryden, "Introduction to Cosmology" 2nd Ed. (The 1st Ed. is good, but out of date.)

Topics by Date

The Smooth Universe

Lecture 1: The Cosmological Principle; Hubble parameter H; scale factor a [Ch 1,2]

Topics
- Cosmological Principle, intro to our universe
- Hubble's Law
- Scale Factor
- Relativity Review
class mechanics
- syllabus
- references
- tools for figuring stuff out
  - theoretical derivation
  - order-of-magnitude estimation
  - physical intuition (hands-on modeling, analogies)
  - numerical simulation/programming

Lecture 2: Friedmann equation; equation of state; radiation, matter, dark energy [Ch 3,4,5]

Topics
- Friedmann Equation
- Spatial Curvature
Problem Set 1, due 1/29, 4pm

Basic kinematic properties: distance-redshift, time-redshift, age, angular sizes [A2]

Topics

The Bright Side

The Planck mass; the ugliest number in physics

Thermodynamics of Fermi and Bose gases in an expanding universe

The longest 3 minutes of your life

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: helium, deuterium, lithium, baryon-to-photon ratio [Ch 12]

The Dark Side

Evidence for dark matter [Ch 9]

Evidence for dark energy

Two dark matter problems: baryonic vs non-baryonic

What can they be?

The Lumpy Universe

Gravitational instability in a static universe

Gravitational instability in an expanding universe

Growth of cosmic structures

Photon-baryon scattering physics; the cosmic microwave background [Ch 10, A5]

The Baby Universe

Successes of the standard Big Bang model [Ch 11]

Problems of the standard Big Bang model [Ch 13]

How to fix it? Inflation

Black Holes

Supermassive black holes at centers of galaxies 6.2 Gravity waves: sources: binary black holes

Gravity waves: detection

Selected Topics (student presentations)

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 * [https://github.com/AaronParsons/astro161/blob/master/syllabus.docx Syllabus]
 * Class Repository: [http://github.com/AaronParsons/astro161 http://github.com/AaronParsons/astro161]
-* BCourses: [https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/14158119]
+* [https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/14158119 C161 on BCourses]
 * Main Text: Ryden, "Introduction to Cosmology" 2nd Ed. ([http://atlas.physics.arizona.edu/~kjohns/downloads/lsst/Ryden_IntroCosmo.pdf The 1st Ed.] is good, but out of date.)