My goal is that at the end of this class we will all understand the cosmological model well enough, and understand how quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and acoustics play out in an expanding system that we can calculate observable effects.
I list a few examples below of things we should be able to calculate by the end of the course..
On the Useful Links page I have posted a link to Ned Wright's cosmological calculator. You should eventually know what calculations this java application is performing.
A common plot to show the succes of our understanding of cosmology is the show predicted abundances of the light elements as a function of photon-to-baryon ratio. You should know how to calculate these abundances and why that particular choice of independent variable makes sense.
In almost every talk with any cosmology content someone shows the model of acoustic peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum, often with a bit of data superimposed. You should know how to set up the calculation of this spectrum. You should also know how to use existing public programs to calculate model spectra rapidly.
In an expanding universe, when the mean time between reactions becomes comparable to the expansion timing that specific reaction type "freezes out". This happens at different times for nuclear reactions, double compton scattering, pair creation, neutrino scattering and electron scattering. We will calculate several of these in detail.
You should know enough about how different types of fluctuations grow during different epochs that you can predict observable consequences of several cosmological options.
Wouldn't it be nice if you knew how to remake those cool BAO movies with different cosmologies?
You should be able to explain to a fellow physicist which topics in current cosmology are speculative, which questions are unanswered and which parts are firmly established.
