Contributions to the TASI-02 and TASI-03 summer schools.
Report-no: SU-GP-04/1-1
astro-ph/0401547

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Abstract. These proceedings summarize lectures that were delivered as part of the 2002 and 2003 Theoretical Advanced Study Institutes in elementary particle physics (TASI) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. They are intended to provide a pedagogical introduction to cosmology aimed at advanced graduate students in particle physics and string theory.

Table of Contents

• INTRODUCTION
• FUNDAMENTALS OF THE STANDARD COSMOLOGY
• Homogeneity and Isotropy: The Robertson-Walker Metric
• Dynamics: The Friedmann Equations
• Flat Universes
• Including Curvature
• Horizons
• Geometry, Destiny and Dark Energy
• OUR UNIVERSE TODAY AND DARK ENERGY
• Matter: Ordinary and Dark
• Supernovae and the Accelerating Universe
• The Cosmic Microwave Background
• The Cosmological Constant Problem(s)
• Dark Energy, or Worse?
• EARLY TIMES IN THE STANDARD COSMOLOGY
• Describing Matter
• Particles in Equilibrium
• Thermal Relics
• Vacuum displacement
• Primordial Nucleosynthesis
• Finite Temperature Phase Transitions
• Topological Defects
• Baryogenesis
• Baryon Number Violation
• INFLATION
• The Flatness Problem
• The Horizon Problem
• Unwanted Relics
• The General Idea of Inflation
• Slowly-Rolling Scalar Fields
• Attractor Solutions in Inflation
• Solving the Problems of the Standard Cosmology
• Vacuum Fluctuations and Perturbations
• Reheating and Preheating
• The Beginnings of Inflation
• REFERENCES