Primordial Cosmology - 9780199209910

This text reviews and explains the central topics needed for understanding the current status and outstanding questions of primordial cosmology, which rests primarily on precise astronomical observations of the local structure of the universe and the development of high-energy physics theories that aim to describe the dynamics of the primordial universe. The authors (both of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France) first review the theories of general relativity and then lay out the standard model of cosmology based on general relativity and the hot Big Bang model. They develop cosmological perturbation theory in reference to the large-scale structure of the universe. They describe the computation of the angular power spectrum of the cosmological microwave background temperature anisotropies and gravitational lensing effects in terms of observational predictions. Inflation models of the universe are then developed as a fundamental paradigm for explaining large scale structure. Extensions of these standard formalisms are then examined, including grand unified theories, scalar-tensor theories of gravity, quantum field theory in curved space-time, supersymmetry and supergravity, and models of phase transitions during the primordial universe, and their different implications for primordial cosmology are explored. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)