Cosmology&particles astrophysics textbook

[lefebvre]

Could you recommend me some good textbooks on cosmology, please? I'm looking for something that covers both general relativity topics and, which is more important for me, particles astrophysics stuff. I like the structure of Bergström&Goobar's book but it's a little bit sketchy. Something with more detailed calculations would be nice. Maybe there are any book that mentions also more modern conceptions like brane cosmology?
I know general relativity (at the level of undergraduate course) and quantum field theory (at the advanced level, I think).

Sorry for duplicating but most of the books usually recommended are too hand-waving for me and don't suit my preferences. Dodelson is quite OK but it's good to have more than one reference :) You would probably recommend Weinberg but is his cosmology book more student-friendly than the QFT one (which is very deep but terrible to read)?

 

[vanhees71]

Well, Weinberg's book is great, as all of his books, particularly the QFT books. What do you mean by student-friendly? As a life-long student I consider these books as some of the "friendliest" books ever, because they explain everything very clearly and give convincing arguments where other books just provide some hand-waving. Of course, Weinberg's books are not meant as introductory texts but to deepen you understanding on the advanced graduate-student level. I'm not an expert in cosmology, but I think Weinberg's book shows the same throughness in treatment of the subject as his QFT books (and also his newest one on non-relativsitic quantum mechanics).

 

[lefebvre]

It's a matter of taste :) I'm not planning to work on cosmology (at least not in the near future). I want to fill in the gaps in my knowledge about cosmology and systematize what I gained through GR and QFT courses. I'm not sure if Weinberg's textbooks are appropriate for this purpose.

I know that his understanding of physics is unbelieveable and he can interpret some things as only a few people on the world. But I think trying to be very original and make a textbook too authorial sometimes does more harm than good (although sometimes it can open one's mind). It's only my opinion. I like to start learning from standard textbook and then expand my knowledge and understanding at a pinch.

 

[vanhees71]

The dilemma with cosmology textbooks is that they are outdated so soon, given the tremendous progress cosmology makes these days. That said, I guess the textbook by Kolb and Turner is what you are looking for (maybe there are updated newer editions). Of course, the fundamentals are still right, and you can read about the newest developments in the original literature, if you like (arXiv is your friend!).

 

[lefebvre]

Thanks, I'll check Kolb and Turner.