Astr328

ASTR 328 - Cosmology and the Structure of the Universe

Fall 2006

Class Times:

Tue 11:30-12:45
Fri 3-4:15

Instructor:

Chris Mihos
mihos@case.edu
Sears 557
368-3729

Textbooks:

none, but readings/references will be from the following books on reserve in the Astronomy Library:

CO	Carroll & Ostlie	Intro to Modern Astrophysics
ZG	Zeilik & Gregory	Astronomy & Astrophysics
SG	Sparke & Gallagher	Galaxies in the Universe
Deep	Sandage, Kron, Longair	The Deep Universe
Long	Longair	Galaxy Formation

Grading Policies:

Graduate Students will typically have an extra problem on each homework set, and will also have a paper/presentation on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor.

Homeworks can be worked on collaboratively, but each person must turn in their own unique writeup/analysis.

Groupwork should be written up collaboratively, with an explicit statement at the end of how the work was divided up amongst the team.

Late HW policy: You get one free late (up to 1 week) homework. After that, it's a penalty of 20% for every day late.

Grade Weights

	Undergrads	Grad Students
Homework	35%	30%
Groupwork	15%	10%
Project	--	10%
Midterm	25%	25%
Final	25%	25%

Homework Sets

HW #1	Sep 22
HW #2	Oct 20
HW #3	Nov 17
HW #4	Dec 8

New Group Assignments

Poitou	Zedonk	Hinny
Katie	Steven	Andrew
Dave	Ben	Lucy
Meredith	Rachel	Mike
	Audrey	Brian

Schedule and Content

Aug 29	Foundations of Modern Cosmology Curved Space and Metrics
Sep 1	The Cosmological Redshift Newtonian Cosmology The Friedmann Equation
Sep 5	Cosmological Parameters Dynamics and Lookback Times Age Tests
Sep 8	Cosmological Observables
Sep 12	Morphology of High Redshift Galaxies Classical Tests of Cosmology
Sep 15	No class
Sep 19	Supernovae Cosmology
Sep 22	Parameter Estimation from the CMB
Sep 29	The Extragalactic Distance Scale Globular Cluster Luminosity Function
Oct 2	Surface Brightness Fluctuations Type Ia Supernovae
Oct 6	Tully-Fisher
Oct 10	Dn-sigma Secondary Indicators -- Summary
Oct 13	Midterm Exam
Oct 17	"Direct"distance indicators: Sunyaev Zeldovich Effect Gravitational Lensing
Oct 20	Growth of Structure
Oct 24	Fall Break
Oct 27	Adiabatic vs Isothermal Fluctuations
Oct 31	Growth of Structure w/ Dark Matter Using Structure to Test Cosmology
Nov 3	Large Scale Motions in the Universe Large Scale Motions (continued)
Nov 7	Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
Nov 10	Non-linear collapse of galaxies
Nov 14	Non-linear collapse of galaxies (cont)
Nov 17	The Star Forming History of the Universe
Nov 21	The Star Forming History of the Universe (cont)
Nov 23	Thanksgiving Break
Nov 28	Galaxy Evolution via Deep Field Studies
Dec 1	Lyman Break and Sub-mm Galaxies
Dec 5	Forming Ellipticals
Dec 8	Cosmology w/ S-Z effect (Meredith)
Dec 20	Final Exam (12:30-3:30)

Other Items of Interest