This course is an advanced undergraduate course in cosmology. The course goal is to understand the physical foundations of cosmological models and their connection to observational data. We will use math at the level of the textbook (see below), which relies on differential and integral calculus. Familiarity with Fourier transforms will be useful but is not a prerequisite. The same is true for coding in Python, which we will use for some data analysis projects.

Expected topics:
•Introduction to General Relativity
•The Friedmann Equation
•Inflation
•Nucleosynthesis
•Evolution of Inhomogeneities
•Cosmic Microwave Background
•Large Scale Structure
•Dark Matter
•Dark Energy
•Analysis of Cosmological Data

Textbook: Introduction to Cosmology, 2d ed., by Barbara Ryden
Note: There is significant overlap with Astro 335, so taking both courses is not recommended.