Modern Cosmology / Edition 2

by Scott Dodelson, Fabian Schmidt

Overview

Modern Cosmology, Second Edition, provides a detailed introduction to the field of cosmology. Beginning with the smooth, homogeneous universe described by a Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric, this trusted resource includes careful treatments of dark energy, big bang nucleosynthesis, recombination, and dark matter. The reader is then introduced to perturbations about an FLRW universe: their evolution with the Einstein-Boltzmann equations, their primordial generation by inflation, and their observational consequences: the acoustic peaks in the CMB; the E/B decomposition in polarization; gravitational lensing of the CMB and large-scale structure; and the BAO standard ruler and redshift-space distortions in galaxy clustering. The Second Edition now also covers nonlinear structure formation including perturbation theory and simulations. The book concludes with a substantially updated chapter on data analysis.

Modern Cosmology, Second Edition, shows how modern observations are rapidly revolutionizing our picture of the universe, and supplies readers with all the tools needed to work in cosmology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780128159484
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	05/27/2020
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Scott Dodelson is Head of the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and was a research fellow at Harvard before moving to Fermilab, the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon. He is the author of more than 200 papers on cosmology, most of which focus on the cosmic microwave background and the large-scale structure of the universe. Dodelson serves as the co-Chair of the Science Committee of the Dark Energy Survey.

Fabian Schmidt is a research group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA) in Garching, Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago in 2009, and moved to MPA after fellowships at Caltech and Princeton. His work in cosmology (approximately 100 papers so far) focuses on theory, numerics, and analysis of quasilinear and nonlinear large-scale structure, and how we can learn from it about gravity, dark energy, and the physics of inflation.

Read an Excerpt

Contains the latest scientific research for mapping the universe.

Table of Contents

1. The Concordance Model of Cosmology 2. The Expanding Universe 3. The Fundamental Equations of Cosmology 4. The Origin of Species 5. The Inhomogeneous Universe: Matter & Radiation 6. The Inhomogeneous Universe: Gravity 7. Initial Conditions 8. Growth of Structure: Linear Theory 9. The Cosmic Microwave Background 10. The Polarized CMB 11. Probes of Structure: Tracers 12. Growth of Structure: Beyond Linear Theory 13. Probes of Structure: Lensing 14. Analysis and Inference

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Shows how modern observations are rapidly revolutionizing our view of the universe, supplying readers with the tools needed to work in cosmology

Editorial Reviews

"...I like the choice of topics and detailed derivations of some of the basic processes which cannot be found in any other textbook and which really make this book a textbook out of which one can actually learn something. Examples include detailed derivation of inflationary spectrum, Boltzmann equation etc. ... I also like the extensive list of problems at the end of each chapter. This is a great textbook that is long overdue given the importance of the subject..." —Uros Seljak, Princeton University

"This book is very up to date and gives excellent treatments of structure formation...This provides what is the most complete such description in an textbook." —Paul H. Frampton, Universtiy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CERN COURIER (Oct 2003)

"(In) Dodelson's Modern Cosmology we have recently obtained an appropriate textbook for the dawn of this new epoch...In a sense, this book is postmodern cosmology (with an affirmative connotation!), in being the first to consider the new wave of challenges for this oldest scientific philosophical pursuit...it provides an excellent introduction to some of the most dynamical areas in physics and astronomy, very likely to remain attractive for at least a couple of decades." —Milan M. Cirkovic, Astronomical Obervatory of Belgrade, FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS (Oct 2003)

"Dodelson writes well and the mathematical derivations are generally well laid out and easy to follow. Useful sets of exercises appear at the end of each chapter, along with suggestions for further reading, often with amusing commentaries. New graduate students, Dodelson's intended audience should find it easy to learn from this book." —George Efstathiou, University of Cambride, England (July 2004)

From the Publisher