2003/01/22 by William H. Kinney, Kinney, William H. · 2 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0301448
Lectures given at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Techniques and Concepts of High Energy Physics, St. Croix, USVI (2002). 60pp, 20 color figs. Version w/ high-res figs is available at http://www.physics.buffalo.edu/whkinney/cv/papers/kinney_asi_2002.ps.gz V2: minor updates/fixes, references added, URL updated
openalex publication_date 2003/01/22 · arxiv created 2004/07/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
These four lectures cover four topics in modern cosmology: the cosmological constant, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, and cosmology as a probe of physics at the Planck scale. The underlying theme is that cosmology gives us a unique window on the ``physics of nothing,'' or the quantum-mechanical properties of the vacuum. The theory of inflation postulates that vacuum energy, or something very much like it, was the dominant force shaping the evolution of the very early universe. Recent astrophysical observations indicate that vacuum energy, or something very much like it, is also the dominant component of the universe today. Therefore cosmology gives us a way to study an important piece of particle physics inaccessible to accelerators. The lectures are oriented toward graduate students with only a passing familiarity with general relativity and knowledge of basic quantum field theory.