PHY 250-1, Evolution of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe, is an advanced graduate level course suitable for graduate students who plan to be (or who are) engaged in cosmological research. We will meet MWF from 2:10-3 in 416 Phys/Geo.

We will be closely following "Modern Cosmology: Anisotropies and Inhomogeneities in the Universe" by Dr. Scott Dodelson. This book is available on-line (do a Google search) or at the bookstore. Feel free to borrow my copy of the textbook for a day or so if you think it will help you decide whether to take the course.

Students will learn how to calculate the power spectra of the CMB temperature anisotropies and of the dark matter and how these depend on cosmological parameters and the primordial spectrum of density perturbations. Our emphasis will be on evolution in the linear regime. We will use both a rigorous relativistic approach (necessary for calculating CMB anisotropies) and also a Newtonian approach (applicable for almost all other phenomena). Other topics include weak lensing, CMB polarization, velocity fields, data analysis and the halo model.

Grading will be based on a project culminating in a short written paper (~3 pages) and an oral presentation. You should find a paper in the literature, and fill in the missing steps in the derivations. Then write up those calculations (don't need a lot of words) and give a presentation to the class.

If you are engaged in a cosmological research project already, you can write your short paper and present a talk on that.

Here are some suggestions for papers:

1) The TE anti-correlation and inflation vs. causal seeds (several papers on this topic... I can help)

2) CMB polarization:

Zaldarriaga PRD 55, 1022 1995

Zaldarriaga and co-author, PRD 52, 3276 1995

'Faraday Rotation of Microwave Background Polarization by a Primordial Magnetic Field', astro-ph/9601055

Arthur Kosowsky's thesis, astro-ph/9501045

3) Estimating the Power Spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background, astro-ph/9708203

4) The Sachs-Wolfe Effect, astro-ph/9609105

5) Dynamical-Friction Galaxy-Gas Coupling and Cluster Cooling Flows

astro-ph/0403696

6) Sunyaev-Zeldovich Fluctuations from the First Stars?, astro-ph/0303007

7) Aspects of the Cosmic Microwave Background Dipole, astro-ph/0210165

8) Large-Angle Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies in an Open Universe, astro-ph/9312017

9) Gravitational Potential Reconstruction from Peculiar Velocity and Weak Lensing Measurements, astro-ph/0207369

10) Weak lensing: see astro-ph/0206434 and references there in.

11) Halo model: Analytic model for galaxy and dark matter clustering, astro-ph/0001493.

12) Mapping the Dark Matter through the CMB Damping Tail, astro-ph/0105424

Schedule for remainder of course

5/17) where constraints on all those cosmo parameters come from

5/21) CMB polarization

5/24) class at 4:10 in Roesler 55 by guest lecturer Stephan Meyer of the WMAP team

5/28) gravitational lensing of CMB

5/31) holiday

6/3) 1 student presentation ?

6/7) no class, I'm out of town

6/11) Paulo's presentation + Ozzie's presentation (this is in exam week... we'll have to check people's exam schedules to choose a time)

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