Spring 2008 Physics 690
Special Topics in Astrophysics: The Dark Universe
Thursdays 1:40-3:40pm, Serin 372
Instructor: Saurabh W. Jha
Schedule and Readings
January 24
Organizational meeting
January 31
The concordance cosmology
- for background: Ned Wright's cosmology tutorial
- Carroll, Press, & Turner 1992, "The Cosmological Constant," ARAA, 30, 499 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Klimek slides)
- for background: Wayne Hu's CMB primer
- Spergel et al. 2007, "Three-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Cosmology," ApJS, 170, 377 download PDF (presenter: Dusan Maletic slides)
Dark Matter
February 7
Historical evidence for dark matter
- Zwicky 1937, "On the Masses of Nebulae and of Clusters of Nebulae," ApJ, 86, 217 download PDF (presenter: Luke Hovey slides)
- Fabricant, Lecar, & Gorenstein 1980, "X-Ray Measurements of the Mass of M87," ApJ, 241, 552 download PDF (presenter: Luke Hovey slides)
- Rubin & Ford 1970, "Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula from a Spectroscopic Survey of Emission Regions," ApJ, 159, 379 download PDF (presenter: Amruta Deshpande slides)
- Ostriker, Peebles, & Yahil 1974, "The Size and Mass of Galaxies, and the Mass of the Universe," ApJ, 193, L1 download PDF (presenter: Amruta Deshpande slides)
February 14
Cold, non-baryonic dark matter vs. the alternatives
- Davis et al. 1985, "The Evolution of Large-Scale Structure in a Universe Dominated by Cold Dark Matter," ApJ, 292, 371 download PDF (presenter: Saurabh Jha slides)
- Primack & Gross 2000, "Hot Dark Matter in Cosmology," astro-ph/0007165 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Calhoun slides)
- Alcock et al. 2000, "The MACHO Project: Microlensing Results from 5.7 Years of Large Magellanic Cloud Observations," ApJ, 542, 281 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Calhoun slides)
- Sanders & McGaugh 2002, "Modified Newtonian Dynamics as an Alternative to Dark Matter," ARAA, 40, 263 download PDF (presenter: Dusan Maletic slides)
February 21
Modern constraints
- Peacock et al. 2001, "A measurement of the cosmological mass density from clustering in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey," Nature, 410, 169 download PDF (presenter: Chelsea Sharon slides)
- Tegmark et al. 2004, "The Three-Dimensional Power Spectrum of Galaxies From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey," ApJ, 606, 702 download PDF (presenter: Chelsea Sharon slides)
- Tyson, Kochanski, & dell'Antonio 1998, "Detailed Mass Map of CL 0024+1654 from Strong Lensing," ApJ, 498, L107 download PDF (presenter: Yue Zhao & Saurabh Jha slides)
- Clowe et al. 2006, "A Direct Empirical Proof of the Existence of Dark Matter," ApJ, 648, 109 download PDF (presenter: Yue Zhao & Saurabh Jha slides)
February 28
Dark matter halos and their demons
- Navarro, Frenk, & White 1996, "The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos," ApJ, 462, 563 download PDF (presenter: Danielle Buggé slides)
- Debattista & Sellwood 1998, "Dynamical Friction and the Distribution of Dark Matter in Barred Galaxies," ApJ, 493, L5 download PDF (presenter: Danielle Buggé slides)
- Keeton 2001, "Cold Dark Matter and Strong Gravitational Lensing: Concord or Conflict?" ApJ, 561, 46 download PDF (presenter: Yi Zhang slides)
- Klypin et al. 1999, "Where are the Missing Galactic Satellites?" ApJ, 522, 82 download PDF (presenter: Yi Zhang slides)
March 6
Direct and indirect detection of particle dark matter
- Asztalos et al. 2006, "Searches for Astrophysical and Cosmological Axions," Ann. Rev. Nuc. Part. Sci., 56, 293 download PDF (presenter: AJ Richards slides)
- Bernabei et al. 2000, "Search for WIMP annual modulation signature: results from DAMA/NaI-3 and DAMA/NaI-4 and the global combined analysis," Phys. Lett. B, 480, 23 download PDF (presenter: AJ Richards slides)
- Akerib et al. 2004, "First Results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search in the Soudan Underground Lab," Phys. Rev. Lett., 93, 211301 download PDF (presenter: Saquib Ahmed slides)
- Cesarini et al. 2004, "The Galactic center as a dark matter gamma-ray source," Astropart. Phys., 21, 267 download PDF (presenter: Saquib Ahmed slides)
Dark Energy
March 13
Evidence and discovery
- Krauss & Turner 1995, "The Cosmological Constant is Back," astro-ph/9504003 download PDF (presenter: Danielle Buggé slides)
- Riess et al. 1998, "Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant", AJ, 116, 1009 download PDF (presenter: Danielle Buggé slides)
- Garnavich et al. 1998, "Supernova Limits on the Cosmic Equation of State," ApJ, 509, 74 download PDF(presenter: Luke Hovey slides)
- Perlmutter et al. 1999, "Measurements of Omega and Lambda for 42 High-Redshift Supernovae," ApJ, 517, 565 download PDF (presenter: Luke Hovey slides)
March 20
No class (spring break reading assignment)
- Peebles & Ratra 2003, "The cosmological constant and dark energy," Rev. Mod. Phys., 75, 559 download PDF
- Padmanabhan 2003, "Cosmological constant -- the weight of the vacuum," Phys. Rep., 380, 235 download PDF
March 27
Dark energy models
- Caldwell, Dave, & Steinhardt 1998, "Cosmological Imprint of an Energy Component with General Equation of State," Phys. Rev. Lett., 80, 1582 download PDF (presenter: Yi Zhang slides)
- Caldwell, Kamionkowski, & Weinberg 2003, "Phantom Energy and Cosmic Doomsday," Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, 071301 download PDF (presenter: Yi Zhang slides)
- Deffayet, Dvali, & Gabadadze 2002, "Accelerated Universe from Gravity Leaking to Extra Dimensions," Phys. Rev. D, 65, 044023 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Klimek slides)
- Carroll et al. 2005, "The Cosmology of Generalized Modified Gravity Models", Phys. Rev. D, 71, 063513 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Klimek slides)
April 3
Modern constraints, part 1
- Davis et al. 2007, "Scrutinizing Exotic Cosmological Models Using ESSENCE Supernova Data Combined with Other Cosmological Probes", ApJ, 666, 716 download PDF (presenter: AJ Richards slides)
- Astier et al. 2006, "The Supernova Legacy Survey: Measurement of Omega_M, Omega_Lambda, and w from the First Year Data Set," A&A, 447, 31 download PDF (presenter: AJ Richards slides)
- Riess et al. 2007, "New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z >= 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy", ApJ, 659, 98 download PDF (presenter: Chelsea Sharon slides)
- Rapetti et al. 2007, "A kinematical approach to dark energy studies," MNRAS, 375, 1510 download PDF (presenter: Chelsea Sharon slides)
April 10
Modern constraints, part 2
- Eisenstein et al. 2005, "Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies," ApJ, 633, 560 download PDF (presenter: Saquib Ahmed slides; the animations in Saquib's presentation can be found on Dan Eisenstein's baryon acoustic peak website, specficially here, here, here, and here.)
- Seljak et al. 2005, "Cosmological parameter analysis including SDSS Ly-alpha forest and galaxy bias: Constraints on the primordial spectrum of fluctuations, neutrino mass, and dark energy," Phys. Rev. D, 71, 3515 download PDF (presenter: Matthew Calhoun slides)
- Allen et al. 2008, "Improved constraints on dark energy from Chandra X-ray observations of the largest relaxed galaxy clusters," MNRAS, 383, 879 download PDF (presenter: Amruta Deshpande slides)
- NEW! Komatsu et al. 2008, "Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation," ApJS, submitted, arXiv:0803.0547 download PDF (presenter: Amruta Deshpande slides)
April 17
Future experiments and a historical perspective
- Calder & Lahav 2007, "Dark Energy: back to Newton?", arXiv:0712.2196 download PDF (presenter: Yan-chi Shi slides)
- Albrecht et al. 2006, "Report of the Dark Energy Task Force," astro-ph/0609591 download PDF (presenter: Yue Zhao slides)
April 24
Final presentations (send in your paper choice by April 5)
- Strigari et al. 2007, "The Most Dark-Matter Dominated Galaxies: Predicted Gamma-ray Signals from the Faintest Milky Way Dwarfs",arXiv:0709.1510v2 (presenter: Danielle Buggé slides)
- Moskalenko & Wai 2007, "Dark Matter Burners," ApJ, 659, L29 (presenter: Chelsea Sharon slides)
- Peirani & de Freitas Pacheco 2008, "Dark Matter Accretion into Supermassive Black Holes," arXiv:0802.2041 (presenter: Saquib Ahmed slides)
- Conrad 2007, "Searches for Particle Dark Matter with the GLAST Large Area Telescope," arXiv:0706.0852 (presenter: AJ Richards slides)
- Feng et al. 2004, "Oscillating Quintom and the Recurrent Universe," astro-ph/0407432 (presenter: Yi Zhang slides)
May 1
Final presentations
- Kahya 2008, "A Decisive test to confirm or rule out existence of dark matter using gravitational wave observations," arXiv:0801.1984 (presenter: Amruta Deshpande slides)
- Holz & Hughes 2005, "Using Gravitational-Wave Standard Sirens," ApJ, 629, 15 (presenter: Matthew Klimek slides)
- Iocco 2008, "Dark Matter Capture and Annihilation on the First Stars: Preliminary Results," ApJ, 677, L1 (presenter: Luke Hovey slides)
- Steinhardt & Turok 2004, "The Cyclic Model Simplified," astro-ph/0404480 (presenter: Yue Zhao slides)
- Salucci et al. 2007, "The universal rotation curve of spiral galaxies – II. The dark matter distribution out to the virial radius," MNRAS, 378, 41; and Persic et al. 1996, "The universal rotation curve of spiral galaxies - I. The dark matter connection", MNRAS, 281, 27 (presenter: Matthew Calhoun)
Last updated:
May 6, 2008
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