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Lern- und Qualifikationsziele
Students will at the end of the course be familiar with how the Universe can be used as a laboratory to probe fundamental physics, and why such observations have led to our current worldview based on the Big Bang, dark matter and dark energy.
Exercises will develop data analysis methods applicable to most research areas.
Voraussetzungen
A background knowledge in astronomy and/or General Relativity is advantageous but not required.
Exercises will carried out through python notebooks.
Gliederung / Themen / Inhalte
Where did the Universe come from, where is it going and what is driving it`s evolution? The field of Cosmology answers these questions based on observations of astronomical phenomena. This allows us to probe scales larger, older and at higher energies than can ever be studied at Earth.
Observations here have led to the discovery of both dark matter and dark energy. The course will discuss how astronomical objects can be used to constrain properties of the Universe as a whole, and why we believe these "dark" components need to be invoked.
Topics of the course in Observational Cosmology include:
- How supernovae can be used as cosmological lighthouses to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe caused by dark energy.
- How elemental abundances observed today can be used to constrain physics right after the Big Bang, at energy scales inaccessible in labs at earth.
- What dynamics of moving astronomical objects tell us about the presence of dark matter.
- How the structure we observe around us developed from primordial quantum fields.
We will also review theory, based in General Relativity, that allows us to measure the Universe at large scale.
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