TASI Lectures on Cosmological Perturbations

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of linear cosmological perturbation theory, focusing on how the six parameters of the minimal cosmological model influence CMB anisotropies and matter power spectrum, with a brief review of non-minimal models.

Contribution

It offers a self-contained summary of the theory of linear cosmological perturbations and discusses the impact of minimal and non-minimal dark matter and dark energy models.

Findings

The six parameters significantly affect CMB temperature anisotropies.

The six parameters influence the linear matter power spectrum.

Non-minimal dark matter and dark energy models may alter standard predictions.

Abstract

We present a self-contained summary of the theory of linear cosmological perturbations. We emphasize the effect of the six parameters of the minimal cosmological model, first, on the spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background temperature anisotropies, and second, on the linear matter power spectrum. We briefly review at the end the possible impact of a few non-minimal dark matter and dark energy models.