An Introduction to the Cosmic Microwave Background

astro8405 elective course, four credit points

Aim of the course: This course intends to give the students a modern and up-to-date introduction to the science and experimental techniques relating to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). No prior knowledge of cosmology is assumed; rather, the course introduces the necessary concepts in the class, and partly depends on the mandatory cosmology course that is taught in parallel. The aim is to make the students interested in the vast field of CMB research, which continues to be one of the richest sources of information about our Universe.


Requirements: Some basic knowledge of electrodynamics and thermal physics, and some experience with Python programming. No prior course-work on cosmology is necessary.


Contents of the course: Roughly 13 lectures, covering the four main topics of (i) CMB thermal spectrum, (ii) CMB temperature anisotropies and their cosmological significance, (iii) CMB polarization and the search for primordial gravitational waves, and (iv) CMB foregrounds and component separation techniques. There will be weekly exercise classes, some of which involve simple programming and plotting.




Day and time:

Mondays, 9:15 − 10:45 AM

Place:

AIfA Lecture Hall 0.006

Lecturer:

Kaustuv Basu (AIfA room #1.006,  kbasu@uni-bonn.de)




Contents (à la WS2022-23):

Date   

Topic                                                      

Lecture slides          

10.10.22

Introduction and the history of CMB’s discovery

PDF

17.10.22

CMB thermal spectrum I (blackbody spectrum, mu and y distortions)

PDF

24.10.22

CMB thermal spectrum II (recombination and decoupling)

PDF

07.11.22

CMB angular power spectrum I (statistical methodology)

PDF

14.11.22

CMB angular power spectrum II (physical processes)

PDF

21.11.22

CMB angular power spectrum III (constraining cosmology parameters)

PDF

28.11.22

CMB polarization I (physical concepts, E and B modes)

PDF


05.12.22

CMB polarization II (imprint of gravitational waves)

PDF


12.12.22

CMB foregrounds and component separation

PDF


19.12.22

CMB anomalies, CMB detectors and experiments

PDF


09.01.23

CMB secondary anisotropies I: Gravitational lensing

PDF


16.01.23

CMB secondary anisotropies II: Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect

PDF


23.01.23

CMB secondary anisotropies III: SZ science of galaxy clusters

PDF





The complementary script, to go along with the lecture slides, is downloadable from this link.

(This script is distributed freely, but is not complete yet. If you find any mistakes, please email kbasu@astro.uni-bonn.de)