astro-ph/0005003
AN EXPOSITION ON INFLATIONARY COSMOLOGY
Gary Scott Watson
Dept. of
Physics,
Brown University,
P.O. Box 1843, Providence, RI 02912
E-mail: watson@het.brown.edu
Abstract. This paper is intended to offer a pedagogical treatment of
inflationary cosmology, which is accessible to undergraduates. In
recent years, inflation has become accepted as a standard scenario
making predictions that are testable by observations of the cosmic
background. It is therefore manifest that anyone wishing to pursue
the study of cosmology and large-scale structure should have this
scenario at their disposal. The author hopes this paper will serve
to `bridge the gap' between technical and popular accounts of the
subject.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
- STANDARD COSMOLOGY
- The Cosmological Principle
- The Expanding Universe
- The Hubble Law and Particle Kinematics
- The Robertson Walker Metric
- The Cosmological Redshift
- The Friedmann Models
- Matter Dominated Models
- The Einstein-deSitter Model
- The Closed Model
- The Open Model
- Summary
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE
- PROBLEMS WITH THE STANDARD COSMOLOGY
- The Horizon Problem
- The Problem of Large-Scale Structure
- The Flatness Problem
- The Monopole Problem
- THE INFLATIONARY PARADIGM
- Particle Physics and Cosmology
- A Brief Summary of the Modern Particle
Physics
- Inflation As a Solution to the Initial Value
Problems
- Inflation and Scalar Fields
- Modeling the Inflaton Field
- The Amount of Inflation
- OBSERVATIONAL TESTS OF INFLATION
- Perturbations and Large-Scale Structure
- The Cosmic Background Anisotropies
- Summary
- REFERENCES
- APPENDIX A: ACRONYMS
