Ay 21 Webpage - Galaxies and Cosmology - Winter 2023

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

Instructor: George Djorgovski, djorgovski at caltech.edu
Office hours: email the instructor

TA: Xander Hall, xhall at caltech.edu
Office hours: Thursdays 8-9 pm, in 219 Cahill

Lectures: Mon & Wed, 3-3:55 pm, Hameetan auditorium, Cahill

Recitation Section: Fridays, 3-4 pm, 219 Cahill. Attendance is required

Class syllabus, summary, grading, collaboration policy, etc. (pdf)

Caltech students have an access to the on-line version of a textbook, Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology by P. Schneider (Caltech login required).
In addition, slides and videos of the lectures will be posted below, as we go along.

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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 5 pm, also on Canvas.

Lectures:

You also have access to an earlier version (very similar, but not identical) 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
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Sec. 4.2
  • Wikipedia article about comoving and proper distances
  • Wikipedia article about the expansion of the universe

• 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
  • A good review paper is "The Hubble Constant", W. Freedman & B. Madore, 2010, ARAA, 48, 673 (1.5 MB pdf file) * [arXiv link]

• Lecture 5: Cosmological Tests
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Sec. 8.3, 8.6, 8.7
  • O. Lahav & A. Liddle: The Cosmological Parameters 2022 (arXiv/2201.08666), from the Review of Particle Physics 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
  • 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
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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 Dark Energy Survey (DES) website

• Lecture 10: Bias, Evolution of Clustering, and Galaxy Clusters
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Secs. 3.1, 3.3, 2.3

• Lecture 12: Elliptical Galaxies, Dwarfs, and Scaling Relations
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Secs. 3.2, 3.4, 3.8

• Lecture 13: Galaxy Evolution
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Secs. 3.5, 3.6, 6.7, 6.8, 9.1 - 9.4

• Lecture 14: Star Formation History, Chemical Evolution of Galaxies, and Intergalactic Medium
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Schneider Secs. 9.1-9.4

• Lecture 16: Quasars, AGN, and Supermassive Black Holes
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • Wikipedia articles on Quasars, AGN, and Seyferts
  • Schneider Chapter 5

• Lecture 17: Quasars at High Energies, Evolution and Formation of Quasars and Supermassive Black Holes
  • Video
  • Slides (pdf)
  • 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)

Other useful stuff:

• Wikipedia articles tend to be really good.
• NED Level 5 ( many good articles)
• Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Planck Mission papers
• P.J.E. Peebles, Nobel Prize Lecture (pdf file)
• J.-P. Luminet, "The Rise of Big Bang Models, from Myth to Theory and Observations" (pdf file)
• E. Hubble, "Explorations in Space: The Cosmological Program for the Palomar Telescopes" (1951, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 95, 461; pdf file)
• What is outside the universe?
• Caltech Library has access to many e-books, including these (Caltech login required):
  • J. Kolata, "Elementary Cosmology"
  • P.J.E. Peebles, "Principles of Physical Cosmology"

Last changed: 24Mar23, SGD