Fundamentals of Cosmology

This book provides an introduction to general relativity based on the homogeneity and isotropy of the local universe. It aims to help the reader to understand the basics of cosmology and general relativity. All relevant experiments are explained and reported.

Thisisthesecondeditionofabookonthephenomenological foundations ofmodern cosmology. The ?rst edition was surprisingly well timed. In the preceding 3 years, advances in astronomy had laid the foundations of the dark-energy/dark-matter c- mological model. In 1998, observations of type Ia supernova by the Supernova C- mology Project and High Z team suggested that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. In 2000, Boomerang and Maxima observed clearly the ?rst acoustic peak in the anisotropy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. The position of the peak strongly suggested that the density of the universe was near critical. These two observations reconciled popular in?ationary models with the heretofore embarrassing insistence by astronomers that the clumping of galaxies required that the mass density of the universe be only about 25% of the critical density. The sup- nova data told us that the rest was dark energy in the form of an effective vacuum energy or cosmological constant. The so-called LambdaCDM model became the standard model. Eight years later, the observational data has improved tremendously as a c- parison of the ?gures in the two editions will demonstrate. Surprisingly, all this incredible data has failed to ?nd any clear failure of the?CDM model. Among the observational advances, the most obvious comes from the WMAP satellitewho,alongtheground-basedexperimentslikeACBAR,yieldedtheexquisite series of peaks in the CMB temperature anisotropy spectrum shown in Fig. 7.11.

New data - mostly WMAP5years and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from SDSS Offers end-of-chapter exercises and a solution manual on springer.com All relevant experiments explained and reported Well-balanced introduction without too much mathematics Evolved from Ecole Polytechnique's outstanding educational program Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Klappentext

The book is aimed at astrophysics students and professional physicists who wish to understand the basics of cosmology and general relativity as well as the observational foundations of the LambdaCDM model of the Universe.

The book provides a self-contained introduction to general relativity that is based on the homogeneity and isotropy of the local universe. The simplicity of this space allows general relativity to be presented in a very elementary manner while laying the foundation for the treatment of more complicated problems.

The new edition presents the most recent observations, including those of CMB anisotropies by WMAP and of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations by SDSS.
Future observational and theoretical challenges for the understanding of dark energy and dark matter are discussed.

From 1st edition reviews:
"The book provides a comprehensive and thorough explication of current cosmology at a level appropriate for a beginning graduate student or anadvanced and motivated undergraduate. ... This is an extremely valuable contribution in the field, which has been changing rapidly ... provides a good look at the intellectual effort and a solid foundation for the new discoveries soon to come." (Physics Today, September 2002)

"All these exciting developments are laid out in a very accessible form in this textbook especially written for senior undergraduates or graduates from various backgrounds. It deals in a very nice and explicit form with the basic ideas of cosmology and general relativity (...). This is a fine textbook and would be very enjoyable for private study. (The Physicist, 2001)

Inhalt
Introduction.- Observational Cosmology.- Coordinates and Metrics.- The Field Equations.- Friedmannology.- The Thermal History of the Universe.- Structure Formation.- Exercises.- Lorentz Vectors and Tensors.- Natural Units.- Standard Particles and Beyond.- Magnitudes.- Solutions and Hints for Selected Exercises.- Useful Formulas and Numbers.- References.- Index.