- PHYS4080 (Frontiers in Astrophysics)
Lecture Notes: Thermal Freezeout and Particle Astrophysics section
- Selected topics in particle cosmology
- We’ll first focus on sections 8.3-8.6
- Review of particle physics and thermodynamics for cosmology
- Thermal decoupling and freezeout
- Weak decoupling, neutrinos and recombination
- Big bang nucleosynthesis
- BBN slides here
Lecture Slides: LCDM and Dark Matter section
- 05: Cosmological Parameters, ΛCDM, extensions, particle cosmology
- 06: Dark Matter 1: Overview, distributions, production
- 07: Dark Matter 2: Direct detection
- 08: Dark Matter 3: Indirect detection, colliders
- See also colloquium slides:
Assignment:
- For the dark matter thermal production assignment, some hints and code snippets are given on the UQ astro github page:
- github.com/AstroUQ/ThermalRelics-PHYS4080
Texts:
- Schneider, Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology: An Introduction
- Main book for the course, available from library
- Sections 8.7-8.8 covers cosmological parameters section
- Chapter 4.4
- Kolb & Turner, The early universe
- A detailed and high-level textbook. Goes well beyond what’s required for the course
- Those who are interested are encouraged to read
- Ch. 4 on big-bang nucleosynthesis
- Ch. 5 on thermal production of dark matter
- Weinberg’s Cosmology book
Optional reading:
- Peebles, Anomalies in Physical Cosmology, arXiv:2208.05018
- Spergel, The dark side of cosmology: Dark matter and dark energy, Science 347, 1100 (2015)
- Bertone & Hooper, A History of Dark Matter, Rev. Mod. Phys. 90, 45002 (2018), arXiv:1605.04909