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AST80003 Cosmology & the Large-scale Structure of the Universe
Course/s with Unit:
A unit of study in the Graduate Certificate of Science (Astronomy), Graduate Diploma of Science (Astronomy) and Master of Science (Astronomy). Credit Points:
12.5 Credit Points Duration:
One semester Contact Hours:
Equivalent to 60 hours Campus:
Off-campus Prerequisites:
AST80006 Galaxies and their Place in the Universe and introductory tertiary-level mathematics & physics, or equivalent. Corequisites:
Nil. Preclusions:
Students who have successfully completed (the old version of this unit) HET605 cannot enroll in this unit. Learning and Teaching Structure:
Online delivery mode, contact via newsgroups & email. Assessment:
Assessable newsgroup contributions (30%), online tests (20%) and project (50%). Aims:
This Unit aims to provide an introduction to cosmology, including the physics of the early Universe, dark matter and dark energy, and the evolution of the observed large-scale structure. Objectives:
After successfully completing this Unit, students should be able to:
- have a conceptual knowledge of space-time and how it has evolved, its observational and theoretical basis and major unresolved questions;
- understand basic cosmology concepts such as the big bang model and cosmic inflation, dark matter and dark energy, with the ability to discuss them in a non-technical way;
- understand the tools with which we probe the large-scale structure of the universe, including large galaxy surveys and supercomputer simulations; and
- research a cosmology topic in depth, using dependable sources of astronomical information on the internet and refereed journal articles.
- Cosmology:
special and general relativity; the hot “big bang” cosmology and alternative cosmologies; the different ‘flavours’ of dark matter and dark energy - The Early Universe:
inflation; early universe particle physics; the cosmic microwave background radiation; nucleosynthesis - Large-scale Structure:
structure formation and evolution; observational cosmology; using supercomputers to build synthetic Universes; the ultimate fate of the Universe
For information about the textbook, follow this link.
