Teaching

ASTR 3800/8050 - Structure Formation in the Universe

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)