| course | dates | credits |
| Early Universe Cosmology | Nov 10 - Dec 11 | 5 |
| teachers | schedule | term |
| Piero Ullio | Mon-Thu, 10:00-11:30 | 1 |
Program:
- Thermodynamics of the early Universe:
Local equilibrium as maximal entropy state: Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac distributions; Number density, energy density, pressure and entropy density; Time-temperature relation; Scale factor-temperature relation.
- Departure from equilibrium:
Boltzmann equation and decoupling from chemical equilibrium; Rule of thumb for chemical decoupling, hot and cold thermal relics; Decoupling from kinetic equilibrium and temperature for species out of local kinetic equilibrium.
- Big Bang Nucleosynthesis:
BBN assuming chemical equilibrium; Neutron decoupling and freeze of out the neutron to proton ratio; The deuterium bottleneck and the synthesis of light elements; Cosmology and particle physics tests within Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.
- Photon decoupling and recombination:
Hydrogen recombination assuming chemical equilibrium distributions; Recombination in the kinetic approach; Cross-checking the kinetic equilibrium hypothesis; Particle physics tests at recombination epoch.
- The dark matter problem:
Overview of evidences for dark matter in the Universe, from galactic to cosmological scales, and implications for particle dark matter candidates; Classification of mechanisms for particle dark matter generation in the early Universe; The WIMP miracle, general features and bounds, and an example of minimal model: the Higgs portal for a scalar singlet; The role of feebly interaction massive particles, sterile neutrinos as dark matter and generalization to EWIMPs.
Prerequisites:
None
Books:
- V. Muchanov, Physical Foundations of Cosmology
- S. Weinberg, Cosmology
- E.W. Kolb and M.S. Turner, The Early Universe
Online Resources:
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