Univirsita` di Bologna Cosmology Course Page

	Universita` di Bologna Cosmology Course April-May 2006:

Universita` di Bologna
Dipartimento di Astronomia
Cosmology (2nd half of course)
27 April - 25 May 2006
Prof. Steven T. Myers

Martedi 4pm-6pm
Giovedi 5pm-7pm
Rm 2

Last update: 19 July 2006

	Lectures:

Lecture	Date	Text	Topic
L01	27 Apr	7.7-7.8.1	Cosmological Problems and Horizons
L02	02 May	7.8.2-7.10	The Inflationary Universe
L03	04 May	7.10-7.12	End of Inflation and Reheating
L04	09 May	13.1-13.6	Primordial Fluctuations from Inflation
L05	11 May	17.1-17.3	Fluctuations and the Cosmic Microwave Bacground
L06	16 May	17.4	The Theory of CMB Fluctuations
L07	18 May	17.5-17.6	Cosmological Parameters and CMB Power Spectrum
L08	23 May	---	CMB Polarization and Observations
L09	25 May	17.7	WMAP, CBI, and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect

Textbook: "Cosmology - The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure", P. Coles and F. Lucchin (2nd Ed.)
Extra Reference: "Physical Foundation of Cosmology", V. Mukhanov (Cambridge, 2005)

	Slides from Lectures CMB Anisotropies (Lectures 7-8): PDF (2.4MB) PPT (15.2MB) CMB Polarization (Lecture 8): PDF (1.8MB) PPT (13.6MB) CMB Observations (Lecture 9): PDF (6.3MB) PPT (21.6MB) The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (Lecture 9): PDF (5.4MB) PPT (20.0MB) Note - the powerpoint contains some animations that are not available in the pdf.

	References:

Cosmological Constant and Inflation

Inflation Guth 2004 - a recent review by one of the originators
The Cosmological Constant and Dark Energy Peebles and Ratra 2003 - an excellent review of Lambda including connections to inflation
Inflation and the Theory of Cosmological Perturbations Brandenberger 1997 - a lecture on inflation, reheating, and production of density fluctuations
Inflation, dark matter and dark energy in the string landscape Liddle and Ureña-López 2006 - a very recent (9 May 2006) paper illustrating the concepts we talked about in class (YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THIS PAPER!)
Inflation model constraints from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe three-year data Kinney, Kolb, Melchiorri and Riotto 2006 - another very recent (13 May 2006) paper placing limits on slow-roll inflation using the latest WMAP CMB data (YOU SHOULD ALSO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THIS PAPER!)

Cosmic Microwave Background - Theory

Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies, Hu and Dodelsion 2002 (ARAA, 40, 171-216) - an comprehensive and comprehensible review of CMB theory
CMB Temperature and Polarization Anisotropy Fundamentals Hu 2003 (Ann.Phys.,303,203-225) - adding in polarization
Wandering in the Background: A Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer Hu 1995 - Wayne Hu's PhD thesis; an exellent first-princples exposition on the subject (highly recommended!)
A CMB Polarization Primer, Hu and White 1997 (New Astron.,2,323) - an early primer on CMB polarization, from before it was measured
Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background White, Scott, and Silk 1994 (ARAA,32,319-370) - a review of CMB physics from just after COBE first results (historical)

Cosmic Microwave Background - Observations

Observational constraints and cosmological parameters A. Lewis 2006 - short conference contribution on parameters from WMAP-3yr data
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology Spergel at al. 2006 - part of the most recent paper release on results from the WMAP mission
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Polarization Analysis Page at al. 2006 - part of the most recent paper release on results from the WMAP mission
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Temperature Analysis Hinshaw at al. 2006 - part of the most recent paper release on results from the WMAP mission
Observations of the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation, Readhead and Lawrence 1992 (ARAA,30,653-703) - a look at the pre-COBE state of CMB observations (historical)
A limit on the anisotropy of the microwave background radiation on arc minute scales Readhead et al 1989 (ApJ,346,566-587) - one of the earliest CMB observations that made cosmologists take cold dark matter seriously (historical)

Power Spectrum and Parameter Estimation and Bayesian Inference

Statistical Challenges of Cosmic Microwave Background Analysis B. Wandelt 2004 - a good short description of issues in CMB analysis
Bayesian evidence as a tool for comparing datasets Marshall, Rajguru and Slosar 2006 (Phys.Rev. D, 73, 067302) - a more detailed description of the use of Bayesian evidence to compare models with different numbers of parameters
Radical Compression of Cosmic Microwave Background Data Bond, Jaffe and Knox 2000 (ApJ, 533, 19) - the classic paper on bandpower estimation for power spectra
Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms David MacKay - an excellent downloadable book on the subject

The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect

Cosmology with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Carlstrom, Holder, and Reese 2002 (ARAA,40,643-680) - a modern review of cosmolgy with the SZ effect
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Birkinshaw 1998 (Phys.Rept.,310,97-195) - a somewhat dated but complete review of the physics and observation of the SZ effect (historical)
Measurements of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect in the Nearby Clusters A478, A2142 and A2256 Myers et al 1997 (ApJ,485,1-21) - an example of using the SZE in a sample of clusters to derive H0 and the baryon content of clusters (historical)
Comptonization Of The Cosmic Microwave Background: The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect Rephaeli 1995 (ARAA,33,541-580) - another dated but detailed review at the mid-90s state of the art (historical)
Intergalactic gas in clusters of galaxies, the microwave background, and cosmology Sunyaev and Zeldovich 1981 - a very early review by the orignals (historical)

	Online Resources:

CMB Codes

CMBFAST - compute CMB power spectra, with LAMBDA Online form interface
CMBEASY - C++ code based on CMBFAST
CAMB - an alternative to CMBFAST, also with LAMBDA online form interface
COSMOMC - Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) for parameter estimation from data and models
HEALPIX - optimal gridding of the sphere for CMB mapping (including fast spherical harmonic transforms)

CMB and Cosmology Websites

Wayne Hu's CMB Page - very good tutorials and references, especially the cosmological parameter animations
Andrey Kravtsov's CosmicWeb Page - structure formation simulations
Ned Wright's Cosmology Calculator - javascript calculator for distances etc.
Max Tegmark's CMB data analysis center - somewhat out-of-date

CMB Data and Observations

WMAP Mission and Data Archive
LAMBDA Archive for CMB results and data.
The Cosmic Background Imager
Max Tegmark's CMB experiment overview - much of this is out-of-date

Literature Archives and Searches

Don't take jesters into outer space,
that's my advice.

Fourteen lifeless planets,
a few comets, two stars.
By the time you take off for the third star,
your jesters will be out of humor.

--- Wislawa Szymborska, from "Warning".