Introduction to Cosmology

TL;DR

This introduction provides an overview of modern cosmology, focusing on large scale structure, CMB anisotropy, and inflation, updating discussions on dark matter and the cosmological constant with recent insights.

Contribution

It offers an updated, comprehensive introduction to key cosmological topics, integrating recent developments and original research by the authors and others.

Findings

Updated discussion on dark matter and cosmological constant

Summary of structure formation and inflation theories

References to original research and reviews

Abstract

These notes form an introduction to cosmology with special emphasis on large scale structure, the cmb anisotropy and inflation. In some places a basic familiarity with particle physics is assumed, but otherwise no special knowledge is needed. Most of the material in the first two sections can be found in several texts, except that the discussion of dark matter and the cosmological constant is more up to date. Most of that in the remaining sections can be found in a review of structure formation and inflation done with Andrew Liddle, which describes original work by various authors including ourselves and Ewan Stewart. The reader is referred to these works for more detail, and a very complete list of references.