COSMOLOGY

Reading list

Assignments

General comments about the course

• The course will consist of 20 lectures at the rate of 3 lectures per week. There will be a mid-term break with no lectures during the week 31st January - 4 February, 2000. If no further lecture days are ``lost'' the course will end on 25 February. If days were ``lost'' there will be extra lectures on some weeks, so as to still finish the course by the same date.

• The syllabus for the course has been distributed. A reading list of books is available. The lectures will not redo material which you should have mastered in M.Sc. or in previous graduate courses but will emphasize topics relevant for appreciating contemporary trends in cosmology

• There will be 3 assignment sets, and one final examination as a part of the course. The assignments will be given to you on 14 January, 28 January and 11 February and are to be returned in 2 weeks time. The finals will be a closed book-in situ 3 hour exam tentatively fixed for 26 February (Saturday) 1400 hrs at A3 seminar room.

• The evaluation procedure is the following: (a) If you score less than 40% in the final exam, you will fail the course irrespective of how well you have done in other components. (b) Your final average grade is computed giving 40% weightage to final exam, and 60% to the assignments. You also need to score a minimum of 50% in the average grade to pass the course. (c) Your final grade for the course will be the average grade computed in (b) above.

References and Textbooks

• Note: It is impossible to learn the relevant topics from any one single textbook. It is also important that you train yourself into making use of diverse kind of reference material since this is an integral part of doing research.

Most of the material covered in the course is discussed in my textbook:
1. T. Padmanabhan, `` Structure formation in the universe'', Cambridge University Press, (1993)

   In addition you may find the following two books useful:

2. P. Coles and F. Lucchin `` Cosmology - The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure'', Wiley, (1995).

3. J.A. Peacock, `` Cosmological Physics'', Cambridge University Press, (1999).

   Several issues are discussed from an interesting perspective in the book

4. P.J. E. Peebles, `` Principles of Physical Cosmology '', Princeton Unviersity Press, 1993.

   More technical details regarding structure formation can be found in a recent review which I wrote:

5. T. Padmanabhan, `` Aspects of Gravitational Clustering'' [Lectures given at IPM School on structure formation January 23 -February 5, 1999, Kish Island. Large Scale Structure Formation. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, volume 247, Editors: R. Mansouri and R. Brandenberger (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2000)]; [astro-ph/9911374].

Assignments - General comments

• There will be 3 assignment sets and one final examination as a part of the course. The assignments will be given to you on 14 January, 28 January and 11 February and are to be returned in 2 weeks time.

• The evaluation procedure is the following: (a) If you score less than 40% in the final exam, you will fail the course irrespective of how well you have done in the other components. (b) Your final average grade is computed giving 40% weightage to final exam and 60% to the assignments. You also need to score a minimum of 50% in the average grade to pass the course. (c) Your final grade for the course will be the average grade computed in (b) above

• The deadline regarding the submission of each assignment will be strictly enforced. No credit will be given if the assignment is not returned in time. The exceptions to this rule will be:

  (a) Because of medical emergencies, you could not complete it in time. If this happens, talk to me and I may [or may not] reduce penalties based on the situation.

  (b) The entire class feels that the assignments are too difficult and require more time. In that case, the class should send me an email within 48 hours of receiving the assignment asking for more time and we will discuss it and finalise the deadline. No extension will be given if the request is made after 48 hours.

• Since the purpose of graduate school is to train you to become researchers, anything that is fair in research is fair in doing assignments. You are free to discuss it among yourselves, colleagues, consult books etc. But the final answers handed in should be entirely composed by you and you should be absolutely clear about every step in it. If someone else is helping you with your assignments make sure he/she teaches you well ! I [ or your friendly tutor] might ask you questions regarding what is submitted before giving it a final grade. Grades will be reduced if you haven't understood what you have submitted even though the answer is correct.

• While I try to keep assignments error-free it might happen that a question may be unclear, too crisp or even wrong. Do talk to me if you think anything is unclear or you suspect could be wrong - before wasting lot of time trying to prove, say, a dimensionally incorrect formula ! There will be no penalties for false alarm and I will be grateful if incorrect statements are brought to my attention as early as possible.

  Assignments - PS files

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  Assignment I: PS file

  Assignment II: PS file

  Assignment III PS file