Ay 21 Webpage

Ay 21 Webpage - Galaxies and Cosmology - Winter 2025

http://sites.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay21/ = tinyurl.com/ay21class

Instructor: George Djorgovski, djorgovski at caltech.edu, 374 Cahill
Office hours: email the instructor
TA: Harshda Saxena, hsaxena at caltech.edu, 250 Cahill
Office hours: Thu 1:30-2:30 pm in 219 Cahill
Lectures: Mon & Wed, 2-3 pm, 219 Cahill. Attendance is recommended
Recitation Section: Fridays, 2-3 pm, 219 Cahill. Attendance is required
Class syllabus, summary, grading, collaboration policy, etc. (pdf)
Caltech students have access to the online version of a textbook, Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology by P. Schneider (Caltech login required).
In addition, videos of the lectures from W'24 are linked below. New lectures may have some updates. Slides of the lectures will be posted below, as we go along.

Homeworks and exams:

See the Canvas website. They will be posted on Fridays at 5 pm (unless otherwise noted), and be due on the following Friday at 2 pm, also on Canvas.

Lectures:

The playlist (from W'24) is here.

Lecture 1: Introduction and Some History
- Video
- Slides (pdf)
- Schneider Sec. 1.2
- M. Longair, "A Brief History of Cosmology" (pdf file)
- D. Christianson, "Edwin Hubble: A Biographical Retrospective" (pdf file)
- Vesto Slipher (a webpage created by John Peacock)
- Who really discovered the expanding universe?
Lecture 2: The Basics of the Relativistic Cosmology
Lecture 3: Cosmological Models and Distances
- Video
- Slides (pdf)
- Schneider Sec. 4.3
- "Distance measures in cosmology" by D. Hogg
- Wikipedia article that covers some of this material
Lecture 4: Cosmological Distance Scale
- Video
- Slides (pdf)
- Schneider Sec. 2.2, 3.4, 3.9
- Good recent reviews include "Progress in direct measurements of the Hubble constant", W. Freedman & B. Madore 2023, JCAP, 11, 050, and "A buyer’s guide to the Hubble constant", P. Shah, P. Lemos, & O. Lahav 2021, Astron. Astrophys. Rev., 29:9
Lecture 5: Cosmological Tests
- Video
- Slides (pdf)
- Schneider Sec. 8.3, 8.6, 8.7
- O. Lahav & A. Liddle: Cosmological Parameters 2023 (arXiv/2403.15526), from the Review of Particle Physics 2023 (--> Astrophysics and Cosmology --> Cosmological parameters)
- M. Turner: The Road to Precision Cosmology, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science Vol. 72:1-35 (2022)
- Good explanations of the CMB fluctuations from Wayne Hu and Max Tegmark
- Planck Mission papers
Lecture 6: The Early Universe
- Video
- Slides (pdf)
- Schneider Sec. 4.4, 4.5
- D, Scott & G. Smoot: Cosmic Microwave Background , from the Review of Particle Physics 2022
- B. Fields, P. Molaro & S. Sarkar: Big Bang Nucleosynthesis , from the Review of Particle Physics 2022
- E. Siegel's popular article about Inflation
- J. Ellis & D. Wands: Inflation , from the Review of Particle Physics 2022
- C. Kiefer: "Quantum gravity - an unfinished revolution", available at arXiv/2302.13047 , or a local pdf
Lecture 7: The Contents of the Universe
- Video
- Schneider - bits and pieces here and there
- Wikipedia article on dark matter is a good summary with the links
- Wikipedia article on dark energy is also OK
- There are many resources about gravitational lensing on the Web
Lecture 8: Structure Formation and Growth
- Video
- Schneider Chapter 7, 10.6, 10.7
- Images and movies from numerical simulations (many more are available on the web):
  - The Illustris project website
  - Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics: structure formation images and movies
  - The Millennium Simulation by the Virgo Consortium
  - Phil Hopkins group structure formation movies
  - Via Lactea project Milky Way formation images and movies
  - KIPAC galaxy and structure formation images and movies
  - J. Dubinski's Gravitas simulations of galaxy mergers
Lecture 9: Large Scale Structure: Observations
- Video
- Schneider Sec. 6.1, 8.1
- A nice review by A. Coil, "Large Scale Structure of the Universe" (2012), available from arXiv/1202.6633
- The SDSS website
- The Dark Energy Survey (DES) website
Lecture 10: Bias, Evolution of Clustering, and Galaxy Clusters
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 6.2 - 6.7
- Lots of good reviews about galaxy clusters at NED Level 5
Lecture 11: Galaxies, Hubble Sequence and its Origins, Spirals
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 3.1, 3.3, 2.3
- NED Level 5 has many good articles about galaxies
- Wikipedia article about Spiral galaxies is very good
Lecture 12: Elliptical Galaxies, Dwarfs, and Scaling Relations
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 3.2, 3.4, 3.8
- Wikipedia article about Elliptical galaxies
- Wikipedia article about Fundamental Plane correlations
- A. Graham, "A Review of Elliptical and Disc Galaxy Structure, And Modern Scaling Laws" (arXiv link), somewhat technical
- Wikipedia article about Supermassive black holes in galaxy centers
Lecture 13: Galaxy Evolution
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 3.5, 3.6, 6.7, 6.8, 9.1 - 9.4, 10.1, 10.5 - 10.7
Lecture 14: Star Formation History, Chemical Evolution of Galaxies, and Intergalactic Medium
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 3.7, 5.7, 8.5, 9.3.4, 9.5, 9.6.2
- P. Madau & M. Dickinson, "Cosmic Star-Formation History" (2014, Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 52, 415; pdf file)
Lecture 15: Young and Forming Galaxies
- Video
- Schneider Secs. 9.1-9.4
- Wikipedia article on Reionization
- JWST images
- KIPAC simulations of the first stars
Lecture 16: Quasars, AGN, and Supermassive Black Holes
- Video
- Video (old)
- Schneider Chapter 5
- Wikipedia articles on Quasars, AGN, Seyferts, and relativistic jets
- Wikipedia article on aparent superluminal motions in AGN jets
Lecture 17: Quasars at High Energies, Evolution and Formation of Quasars and Supermassive Black Holes
- Video">
- Schneider Chapter 5
- Caltech students have access to an electronic version of the book An Introduction to Active Galactic Nuclei by Bradley Peterson (Caltech login required)