course dates credits
Beyond the Standard Model in the Early Universe TBA 2
teachers schedule term
Andrea De Simone TBA 3

Program:

NOTE: Due to national holiday on 25/4, the catch-up lecture will be delivered on 19/4

  • Phase Transitions in the early Universe
    • Effective potentials at zero and finite temperature
    • Thermal tunnelling
  • Baryogenesis
    • General conditions, Sphalerons, Boltzmann equations
    • Electroweak Baryogenesis
    • Leptogenesis
  • Topological defects
    • General classification
    • Magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings, domain walls
  • Particle physics candidates for the dark matter component of the Universe
    • Introduction to the dark matter problem and insights on the properties of dark matter particles from astrophysics and cosmology
    • The WIMP paradigm and a prototype WIMP dark candidate: a Bino-like neutralino in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM)
    • A few exceptions to the WIMP paradigm: coannihilation, threshold and resonance effects and impact on dark matter in the MSSM
    • Direct detection of WIMP dark matter: test and challenges to the framework
    • Indirect detection of WIMPs; mechanisms for non-thermal generation of dark matter
    • The cosmological gravitino problem and gravitinos as dark matter
    • Dark matter as a condensate: the case for axion dark matter

Prerequisites:

Books:

  • E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner, The Early Universe, Addison-Wesley (New York, 1990)
  • D. S. Gorbunov, V. A. Rubakov, Introduction to the Theory of the Early Universe - Hot Big Bang Theoryť, World Scientific (2011).

Online Resources:

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