When: Spring 2016, TR 1:10-2:25pm
Where: 6322 Stevenson
Textbook: Assigned readings
| Other helpful books: | "Galaxy Formation and Evolution" by Mo, van den Bosch, & White (Cambridge). |
| "Structure Formation in the Universe" by Padmanabhan (Cambridge). | |
| "Introduction to Cosmology" by Ryden (Adison Wesley) | |
| "Modern Cosmology" by Dodelson (Academic Press) | |
| "Cosmological Physics" by Peacock (Cambridge) |
Syllabus and Course Info: syllabus
Preprint Archive: http://arXiv.org/list/astro-ph.CO/recent
Lecture Slides: Lecture slides (part 1), Lecture slides (part 2)
Week 1: January 12-14
| Topics: | Aims of the course, CMB |
| Reading: |
Week 2: January 19-21
| Topics: | CMB, Galaxy morphology, fluxes/magnitudes/surface brightness/colors, Stellar spectra, Stellar populations |
| Reading: | |
| Assignment: | Assignment #1 due Tuesday, February 2: Assignment 1 |
Week 3: January 26-28
| Topics: | Stellar populations, Distance indicators |
| Reading: | Freedman et al. (2001) |
Week 4: February 2-4
| Topics: | Redshift, Hubble law, SDSS, Redshift distortions, Redshift surveys |
| Reading: |
Week 5: February 9-11
| Topics: | Redshift surveys, Flux/Volume-limited samples, K-corrections, Selection functions, Luminosity functions |
| Reading: | Blanton et al. (2005) |
| Assignment: |
Assignment #2 due Tuesday, February 23: Assignment 2
For the assignment, you will need this file: SDSS_DR7.dat |
Week 6: February 16-18
| Topics: | Photometric redshifts, Galaxy morphology, Galaxy Environments, Galaxy groups and clusters |
| Reading: |
Week 7: February 23-25
| Topics: | Galaxy clusters, MOND, the Bullet Cluster, Quasars and the Lyman-alpha forest |
| Reading: |
Week 8: March 1-3
| Topics: | Galaxy clustering statistics |
| Reading: |
Zehavi et al. (2005) Sections 1, 2, and 3
Hamilton (1997) First ~10 pages Strauss & Willick (1995) pages 18-28 and 45-52 |
| Assignment: |
Assignment #3 due Tuesday, March 22: Assignment 3
For the assignment, you will need these files: SDSS_Mr21_rspace.dat, SDSS_Mr20_rspace.dat, SDSS_random.dat, SDSS_Mr20_zspace.dat, DM.dat, DM_random.dat |
Week 9: March 22-24
| Topics: | Power spectra, The Friedman equation, Cosmological parameters |
| Reading: |
Frieman et al. (2008)
Weinberg et al. (2013) |
| Assignment: | Read the above papers and think about what method of constraining Dark Energy you want to study and present in your final project. The four methods are: Supernovae, Clusters, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, Weak Lensing |
Week 10: March 29-31
| Topics: | Cosmology, Distance measures, Linear evolution of the density field. |
| Reading: | Hogg (2000) |
| Assignment: | Assignment #4 due Tuesday, April 12: Assignment 4 |
Week 11: April 5-7
| Topics: | Velocity fields, Nonlinear evolution: the spherical collapse model, N-body simulations |
| Reading: |
Week 12: April 12-14
| Topics: | Nonlinear evolution: N-body simulations, Dark matter halos, Press-Schecter theory, Dark matter halo properties, |
| Reading: | Jenkins et al. (2001) |
Week 13: April 19-21
| Topics: | Modeling galaxy clustering and the halo model Halo abundance matching and conditional luminosity functions |
| Reading: |
Berlind & Weinberg (2001)
Zehavi et al. (2005) |
Week 14: April 26
| Topics: | Galaxy formation theory |
| Reading: |
|
Week 15: April 22-24
| Topics: | Cosmological probes of dark energy |
| Final presentation: | Final presentations and writeups due this week |
| Date: TBD | |
| Reading: |
Review:
Frieman et al. (2008)
Weinberg et al. (2013)
BAO: Seo & Eisenstein (2003) Eisenstein et al. (2005) Supernovae: Riess et al. (1998) Wood-Vasey et al. (2007) Clusters: Haiman et al. (2001) Vikhlinin et al. (2009) Weak Lensing: Munshi et al. (2008) Benjamin et al. (2007) |