Related papers: TASI Lectures on Primordial Cosmology
These lecture notes provide an introduction to cosmic inflation. In particular I will review the basic concepts of inflation, generation of density perturbations, and reheating after inflation.
Large scale magnetic fields represent a triple point where cosmology, high-energy physics and astrophysics meet for different but related purposes. After reviewing the implications of large scale magnetic fields in these different areas,…
We discuss how primordial (e.g. inflationary) non-Gaussianity in the cosmological perturbations is left imprinted in the Large-Scale Structure of the universe. Our findings show that the information on the primordial non-Gaussianity set on…
In these two lectures I will discuss some outstanding problems in the standard model of cosmology, concentrating on the physics that might be related to the title of this school, ``Searching for the totally unexpected in the LHC era.'' In…
This thesis investigates cosmological particle production within Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes, both as a dark matter mechanism and through analog simulations using Bose-Einstein condensates. While a full theory of Quantum…
Big-Bang cosmology and ideas for possible physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics are introduced. The density budget of the Universe is audited, and the issues involved in calculating the baryon density from microphysics are…
Detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate the large-scale homogeneity of the universe. On very small scales, we observe however inhomogeneities such as galaxies, stars, planets and ourselves. In the context of hot…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
Cosmology and astroparticle physics give strongest possible evidence for the incompleteness of the Standard Model of particle physics. Leaving aside misterious dark energy, which may or may not be just the cosmological constant, two…
We provide a pedagogical approach to gravitational waves in cosmology with focus on gravitational wave signals related to primordial black holes. These lectures notes contain more details than one is able to present in the two two-hour…
Magnetic fields appear wherever plasma and currents can be found. As such, they thread through all scales in Nature. It is natural, therefore, to suppose that magnetic fields might have been formed within the high temperature environments…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
The temperature anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provide a window back to the physics of the early universe. They encode the nature of the initial fluctuations and so can reveal much about the…
These lectures have been given to particle physicists, mostly experimentalists and very briefly and at a pedestrian level review the problems of dark matter. The content of the lectures is the following: 1. Introduction. 2. Cosmological…
We discuss early cosmology in theories where the fundamental Planck mass is close to the TeV scale. In such theories the standard model fields are localized to a (3+1)-dimensional wall with n new transverse sub-millimeter sized spatial…
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…
Primordial non-Gaussianities (PNGs) are features in the initial density field that provide a window into the nonlinear dynamics of particles during the inflationary epoch. Among them, a distinctive set of signatures from "cosmological…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we discuss the initial conditions for Population III star formation, as given by variants of the…
Recent developments in the study of primordial black holes (PBHs) will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on their formation and evaporation. PBHs could provide a unique probe of the early Universe, gravitational collapse, high energy…
We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first (Section 2) state our allegiance to scientific realism, and…