Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structures

About this book

This is the 2nd edition of a highly successful title on this fascinating and complex subject. Concentrating primarily on the theory behind the origin and the evolution of the universe, and where appropriate relating it to observation, the new features of the this addition include:

*An overall introduction to the book
*Two new chapters: Gravitational Lensing and Gravitational Waves
*Each part has a collection of exercises with solutions to numerical parts at the end of the book
*Contains a table of physical constants
*The addition of a consolidated bibilography

Contents

Preface to First Edition. Preface to Second Edition. PART 1: COSMOLOGICAL MODELS. First Principles. The Friedmann Models. Alternative Cosmologies. Observational Properties of the Universe. PART 2: THE HOT BIG BANG MODEL. Thermal History of the Hot Big Bang Model. The Very Early Universe. Phase Transitions and Inflation. The Lepton Era. The Plasma Era. PART 3: THEORY OF STRUCTURE FORMATION. Introduction to Jeans Theory. Gravitational Instability of Baryonic Matter. Non Baryonic Matter. Cosmological Perturbations. Non Linear Evolution. Models of Structure Formation PART 4: OBSERVATIONAL TESTS. Statistics of Galaxy Clustering. The Cosmic Microwave Background. Peculiar Motions of Galaxies. Gravitational Lensing. The High Redshift Universe. A Forward Look. Appendix A: A Physical Constants. Appendix B: Useful Astronomical Quantities. Appendix C: Particle Properties. References. Index.

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