The Early Universe

Gerhard Börner ist Professor für Physik an der Universität München und Mitarbeiter am Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik in Garching.Zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen zur Relativistischen Astrophysik und Kosmologie.

Fourteen years is a long time, and especially in the field of cosmology new observational results and new theoretical ideas seem to appear at a steadily increasing rate. It is achallenge to try to review the current status, to give a reasonably fair account of new developments, and not to increase the size of the book out of all proportion. So this fourth edition is practically a new book, with many chapters and sections newly written, not just updated. I have kept the original layout of the book with three parts concerned with (I) the standard model, (II) some basic implications of quantum field theory, and (III) quest ions of structure formation. I have given special emphasis to the new observations of the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, and attempted to explain their importance for cosmology as well as for structure formation models. There have also been improved measurements in almost every cosmologically relevant field, from the Rubble constant to element abundances and galaxy distribution statistics. Quite surprisingly, the standard cosmological models can still accommodate all these new obser vations.

I. The Standard Big-Bang Model.- 1. The Cosmological Models.- 2. Facts - Observations of Cosmological Significance.- 3. Thermodynamics of the Early Universe in the Classical Hot Big-Bang Picture.- 4. Can the Standard Model Be Verified Experimentally?.- II. Particle Physics and Cosmology.- 5. Gauge Theories and the Standard Model.- 6. Grand Unification Schemes.- 7. Relic Particles from the Early Universe.- 8. Baryon Synthesis.- 9. The Inflationary Universe.- III. Dark Matter and Galaxy Formation.- 10. Typical Scales - From Observation and Theory.- 11. The Evolution of Small Perturbations.- 12. Non-linear Structure Formation.- A. The Gauge-Invariant Theory of Perturbations.- A.1 The "3+1" Formalism.- A.1.1 Unperturbed Solutions.- A.1.2 Small Perturbations.- A.3 Gauge-Invariant Variables.- A.4 Linearized Einstein Equations for Gauge-Invariant Variables.- A.5 The General Solution.- B. Recent Developments First Year Results from WMAP.- B.1 Temperature Anisotropies.- B.2 Polarization Signal.- References.