Professor Manuel Drees

Lectures

SS 12:

Theoretical Astroparticle Physics

Time and Place: Wednesday, 13:15 to 14:00, and Friday, 13:15 to 15:00, both times HS 1, PI (i.e., in the big lecture room).

First Lecture: April 4, 2012.

Last Lecture: July 13, 2012.
The figures shown on the projector during class can be found here.

Tutorials: Time and Place: Thursday, 15:15 to 16:45, AVZ, room 0.009
First session: April 12
Tutor: Nicolas Bernal (Wegelerstr.10, room 2.023; tel. 9411, e-mail nicolas `at' th.physik.uni-bonn.de)
The assignments can be downloaded here.

Final Exam: In July
Only students who have done at least 50% of the homework of this class will be permitted to take the exam! In order to check this, the tutor will pass a list at the beginning of each tutorial, in which the students will indicate which problem(s) they solved. The tutor will use this list to call someone to the board, to present the solution. The solution need not be entirely correct to be counted towards the 50%, but you must have made a serious attempt at solving the problem.
If desired, students can also hand their written solutions to the tutor, asking for it to be corrected. This may be of interest to you if your solution differs from the one being presented, and you wish to know whether your solution is also ok.

This lecture deals with particle physics aspects relevant for our (tentative) understanding of the Universe, in particular of the very early universe, i.e. the era up to and including Big Bang nucleonsynthesis. The lecture is aimed at students interested in experimental and/or theoretical (astro-)particle physics. Prior knowledge of relativistic quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics will be assumed. I will occasionally use results from Quantum Field Theory, but one should be able to follow this class without having taken lectures in Quantum Field Theory first. (Of course, everybody interested in particle theory should take the QFT classes, too!) Similarly, I will use some results from General Relativity (chiefly, the Friedman Robertson Walker metric) without derivation. Prior knowledge of popular extensions of the Standard Model - in particular, Supersymmetry - is helpful but not essential.

The following topics will certainly be covered:
1) Introduction: the evolution of the universe in 30 minutes
2) Friedman-Robertson-Walker metric
3) Thermodynamics in an expanding universe
4) Big Bang Nucleosynthesis as a laboratory for New Physics
5) How Dark Matter may have been made
6) Baryogenesis: making baryons
7) Inflation: basics and simple models
8) Inflation: quantum fluctuations as seed for structure formation
9) Inflation: reheating the Universe

Particle physics aspects of today's universe will not be covered. Many of these topics (e.g., how to search for Dark Matter particles; neutrino astrophysics; the physics of cosmic rays) have been covered in the experimental astro-particle physics lecture given last semester by Böser and Dingfelder (physics711).

Literature:
M.E. Turner and E.W. Kolb, The Early Universe, is still the standard text, written from a particle physics oriented perspective.
Drees, Godbole and Roy, Theory and Phenomenology of Sparticles, gives an in-depth treatment of supersymmetry, with emphasis on phenomenological aspects, and a lengthy chapter on cosmological aspects.

Weekly Theoretical High Energy Physics seminar

Master and Doctoral Theses