A&C reference library

Astronuc

OPPORTUNITIES IN NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS
Conclusions of a Town Meeting held at the University of Notre Dame
7-8 June 1999
http://www.nscl.msu.edu/~austin/nucl...trophysics.pdf

It would be interesting to do an update of this program.

Also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_I...r_Astrophysics
http://www.jinaweb.org/

marcus

New textbooks about the early universe. Expensive but the department library might be willing to order copies.

http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/7874.html
INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE
Hot Big Bang Theory
by Dmitry S Gorbunov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) & Valery A Rubakov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia & Moscow State University, Russia)
This book is written from the viewpoint of a deep connection between cosmology and particle physics. It presents the results and ideas on both the homogeneous and isotropic Universe at the hot stage of its evolution and in later stages. The main chapters describe in a systematic and pedagogical way established facts and concepts on the early and the present Universe. The comprehensive treatment, hence, serves as a modern introduction to this rapidly developing field of science. To help in reading the chapters without having to constantly consult other texts, essential materials from General Relativity and the theory of elementary particles are collected in the appendices. Various hypotheses dealing with unsolved problems of cosmology, and often alternative to each other, are discussed at a more advanced level. These concern dark matter, dark energy, matter-antimatter asymmetry, etc.
Contents:
Cosmology: A Preview
Homogeneous Isotropic Universe
Dynamics of Cosmological Expansion
ΛCDM: Cosmological Model with Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Thermodynamics in Expanding Universe
Recombination
Relic Neutrinos
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
Dark Matter
Phase Transitions in the Early Universe
Generation of Baryon Asymmetry
Topological Defects and Solitons in the Universe

Readership: Cosmologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
500pp (approx.)

http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/7873.html
INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE
Cosmological Perturbations and Inflationary Theory
by Dmitry S Gorbunov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) & Valery A Rubakov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia & Moscow State University, Russia)
This book accompanies another book by the same authors, Introduction to the Theory of the Early Universe: Hot Big Bang Theory and presents the theory of the evolution of density perturbations and relic gravity waves, theory of cosmological inflation and post-inflationary reheating. Written in a pedagogical style, the main chapters give a detailed account of the established theory, with derivation of formulas. Being self-contained, it is a useful textbook for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students. Essential materials from General Relativity, theory of Gaussian random fields and quantum field theory are collected in the appendices. The more advanced topics are approached similarly in a pedagogical way. These parts may serve as a detailed introduction to current research.
Contents:
Jeans Instability in Newtonian Gravity
Cosmological Perturbations in General Relativity. Equations of Linearized Theory
Evolution of Vector and Tensor Perturbations
Scalar Perturbations: Single-Component Fluids
Primordial Perturbations in Real Universe
Scalar Perturbations Before Recombination
Structure Formation
Beyond Ideal Fluid Approximation
Temperature of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
CMB Polarization
Drawbacks of the Hot Big Bang Theory. Inflation as Possible Way Out
Inflation in Slow Roll Regime
Generation of Cosmological Perturbations at Inflation
Further Aspects of Inflationary Theory
Preheating After Inflation
Bouncing Universe

Readership: Cosmologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
480pp (approx.)

http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/7235.html
PRIMORDIAL COSMOLOGY
by Giovanni Montani (ENEA & ICRANet, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy), Marco Valerio Battisti (ICRA & University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy), Riccardo Benini (ICRA & University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy), & Giovanni Imponente (Queen Mary, University of London, UK)
Primordial Cosmology deals with one of the most puzzling and fascinating topics debated in modern physics — the nature of the Big Bang singularity. The authors provide a self-consistent and complete treatment of the very early Universe dynamics, passing through a concise discussion of the Standard Cosmological Model, a precise characterization of the role played by the theory of inflation, up to a detailed analysis of the anisotropic and inhomogeneous cosmological models...
This book traces clearly the backward temporal evolution of the Universe, starting with the Robertson–Walker geometry and ending with the recent results of loop quantum cosmology in view of the Big Bounce. The reader is accompanied in this journey by an initial technical presentation which, thanks to the fundamental tools given earlier in the book, never seems heavy or obscure.
Contents:
Historical Picture — From Ancient Cultures to the 20th Century
Fundamental Tools — Einstein Theory and Singularity Theorems
The Structure and Dynamics of the Isotropic Universe
Shortcomings of the Standard Model and Inflationary Theory
Inhomogeneous Quasi-Isotropic Cosmology
Homogeneous Universes — Chaotic Cosmology
Hamiltonian Formulation of the Mixmaster — The Liouville Measure
The Generic Cosmological Solution — Singularity without Symmetries
Quantum Cosmology — From the Wheeler-DeWitt Approach to Loop Quantum Cosmology

Readership: Researchers in cosmology, high energy physics and quantum physics.
616pp (approx.)

Amazon links for these and related textbooks:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-T...dp/9814322245/
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-T.../dp/9814322229
http://www.amazon.com/Primordial-Cos...dp/9814271004/
http://www.amazon.com/Canonical-Grav...dp/0521195756/

marcus

Spires database has gotten a bit slow. I am currently getting somewhat better results with the German mirror site maintained by the DESY library.

Here for instance is the Stanford Spires search for post-2008 keyword Quantum Cosmology (QC) research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...tecount%28d%29

Here is the corresponding DESY search:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29

Both currently give 210 QC papers that appeared after 2008, ranked by citation count: most often cited papers shown first. But the Stanford site takes longer and sometimes times out.

marcus

Simulations of structure formation in the early universe:
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galfo...go/millennium/
"Millennium simulations".
May be something we linked to before---like the Volker Springel 2005 movies.

Astronuc

This and the following web pages contain a database of short essays from the Astronomy and Astrophysics Encyclopedia, ed. Stephen P. Maran.
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/essays.html

marcus

Jorrie has an online cosmology calculator that embodies the standard model of the U, just as Morgan's and Ned Wright's do
http://www.einsteins-theory-of-relat.../cosmocalc.htm

It has some extra features and some advantages that make it easier to use, in certain respects. May also have additional precision at high redshifts. So it is definitely worth checking out.

If you want to use it and don't have the URL handy, you can get it by googling
"jorrie cosmological calculator" or else
"cosmological calculator 2010"

Jorrie credits another PF member, Hellfire, for originally setting it up. As I understand it, this is an updated version with whatever adjustments, based on 2010 values of the constants.

Astronuc

Want To Make A Giant Telescope Mirror? Here's How
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145837...rror-heres-how

http://www.gmto.org/

marcus

Yenchin came up with a possibly useful iconic picture of the Einstein field equation (basic GR equation)
http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetin...ity_worlds.jpg

marcus

Emmy Noether's original paper, in English translation:

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0503066
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0503066.pdf

Section 6 on page 12 discusses the fact that conservation of energy does not hold generally in the curved spacetime of GR---something pointed out by David Hilbert.
The paper first appeared in the Nachrichten der Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (1918)

marcus

Standard Solar Model, thanks to Phyzguy:
http://www.ap.stmarys.ca/~guenther/e...n/ssm1998.html

Gives percentages of H, He, and heavier elements. Derived by a computer model of fusion burning in core starting with pre-star gascloud abundances. Provides basis for estimating the remaining lifetime of the sun.

=============

The estimated total entropy as of today of the universe within our cosmic event horizon might be of interest to someone.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.3983 This was published in Astrophysical Journal in 2010.
One of the co-authors is Charley Lineweaver.
Here's a conference presentation writeup based on it, some nice color visuals.
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/p...ganParisv2.pdf

marcus

When I type this into Google and press space, or equal sign, Google calculates the present critical energy density of the universe.
3c^2(71 km/s per Mpc)^2/(8pi*G)

that is because it can interpret "71 km/s per Mpc" which is the present value of the Hubble rate H
and because the formula for the critical energy density is
ρ_crit=3c²H²/8πG

It gives the answer in PASCALS but a pascal is the same as a joule per cubic meter. the same unit works for both pressure and energy density.
So essentially it tells you the density in question is 0.85 nanojoule per cubic meter.
It's gratifying how much the Google calculator recognizes and is able to calculate.
It knows things like "mass of earth" "mass of electron" "radius of sun".
So you can put a term like "radius of earth" into a formula you want it to calculate, like type in
2pi*radius of earth
and you get a bit over 40,000 kilometers.
I guess you could say that the Google calculator is a library resource

marcus

A nice interactive graphic illustrating the various size scales of the universe. I'm not sure if we posted it before. Indications are it's new this year, at least in this version, so probably not.
http://htwins.net/scale2/
New PF member Wakabaloola gave us the link.

marcus

A nice pedagogical thing. Pairs of masses orbiting each other send out gravity waves--yes we know this. It was the basis of the 1993 Nobel prize to Hulse and Taylor who observed a binary pulsar. But how about an example close to home?

By orbiting the sun, the Earth radiates 196 Watts of power in gravity waves. the frequency of the wave is presumably one cycle per year, very low frequency

How do you know? Wikipedia has the formula for the radiated power. Type the following into google search window, which functions as a scientific calculator:
32/5*G^4/c^5*(mass of earth*mass of sun)^2(mass of earth+mass of sun)/(1 AU)^5

It knows what G is and what c is, and what the masses of earth and sun are. So you don't have to look any of that up. When you type that in, or simply paste it in, if you want, and press space or equal sign, it will say 196 watts.

thanks to Mfb for this idea.

marcus

A new kind of cosmological calculator. Tabular output instead of oneshot. It reveals patterns: maxima, crossovers, relationships between columns in the table... So it is somewhat better for learning than a one-shot. Perhaps quite a bit better, I don't now yet. We need a place to keep "user manual" type information---what you can do with it. At least temporarily until there is a page somewhere online you can link to. For now here is the most user-manualish information I've seen:

marcus

This by Ruth Durrer What do we really know about dark energy?
might be good to have handy as a reference.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.5331
It explains what is really being measured

azzkika

Sorry to be cynical, your posts are most informative to an amateur like me so many many thanks for the work you and others put in on this site, but doesn't this link just state that the observations don't fit the theory so we add in X to balance the equation and X is called dark energy. Essentially the universe doesn't behave as expected is my understanding. Maybe no dark energy is required just a better understanding of the universe.

marcus

It's important to be skeptical. To have deep reserves of skepticism about manmade theories.
This could translate into a cynical attitude when one hears scientists who should know better gushing about "dark energy" to get media attention, or sell books, or get funding. But those are INDIVIDUALS.
I would not be cynical about the current cosmic models, they may actually be more solid and justified than you think and if they turn out wrong, well, that is not dishonorable! Theories are meant to be tested and eventually improved or discarded. I would rather be skeptical about the theories---no disrespect.

You might like this recorded interview with Carlo Rovelli:
http://edge.org/conversation/a-philosophy-of-physics

Rovelli is one of today's prominent physicists and is skeptical both of "dark energy" and of "string theory". But derogatory only of the HYPE. He has what I think is quite a reasonable attitude about the cosmological constant Lambda, which people CALL "dark energy" but there is no evidence that it is any kind of energy. It behaves, as far as we can tell, like a simple slight constant curvature. As such it has a natural place in the Einstein equation. For 90 years or so people knew this constant curvature naturally appeared in the GR equation but most people assumed the constant was zero.

The GR equation has room in it for TWO geometric constants, Newton's G and Lambda. Lambda is a curvature that for a long time we thought it was zero, and it happens not to be. That's all.
To see that viewpoint explained, google "rovelli prejudice". You get a paper by Bianchi and Rovelli called "Why all these prejudices against a constant".
Or go here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.3966 and click on PDF.

Since this is a bibliography thread, it is better to make a separate thread to discuss questions like this. If you want, start one. This thread is mainly for useful links to research papers, videos and other online resources.