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Article Contents

ABSTRACT

1. STRUCTURES IN THE UNIVERSE

1.1. Large-scale structures (1750-1967)

1.2. Surveys in other wavelength regions

1.3. Automated two-dimensional surveys since 1980

1.4. The third dimension

1.5. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional cluster surveys

2. THE USE OF THE SURVEYS

2.1.Structural properties on large scales

2.1.1. Clusters of galaxies

2.1.2. Superclusters

2.1.3. Structures discovered in redshift space

2.2. Physical properties of large-scale structures

2.2.1. Masses and the mass to light ratio of galaxies; dark matter

2.2.2. The luminosity function of galaxies

2.3. Comparison with theory

2.3.1. Statistics

2.3.2. Evolution of clustering and N-body simulation

2.3.3. Physical evolution

3. MODELS OF THE UNIVERSE

3.1. Basic concepts

3.1.1. The cosmological principle

3.1.2. Curvature and metric in general relativistic universes

3.1.3. Cosmic time

3.1.4. Look-back time

3.2. Basic parameters

3.2.1. R(t) - the scale factor, and its time derivatives

3.2.2. Horizons

3.2.3. The current matter density of the universe ₀ and its normalized value ₀

3.2.4. The cosmological constant

4. THE MODERN UNIVERSE

4.1. The role of for inflation

4.2. The link to particle physics

5. BASIC DATA

5.1. The role of data in cosmology

5.2. Redshifts and distances

5.3. Magnitudes (fluxes)

5.3.1. Effects due to space curvature

5.3.2. Absorption corrections

5.3.3. Aperture and orientation corrections

5.4. Angles

5.4.1. Effects due to space curvature

5.4.2.Corrections

5.5. Combined measurements

5.6. Selection

5.7. Evolutionary effects

6. RESULTS EXPECTED FROM THE DATA

6.1. The log (z)-diagram

6.2. A basic observational diagram

7. CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES