Courses (current and previous)

SoSe 2019

Summary

Summary: This course gives an elementary introduction to the theoretical and observational foundations of modern cosmology. It covers the various strands of evidence for our current cosmological model and our understanding of how structure formed in the universe. Much of the material will be presented on a blackboard which means that attendance is strongly recommended. The lecture will be held in English. There will be an emphasis on solving problems and the course will conclude with a written exam.

Lecture

• Notes (excerpt)

Supplement

• Python lecture
• Example script (Make sure to replace .txt by .py and uncomment first two lines.)
• We recommend to use Anaconda for Python 3 installation. Install instruction can be found in the documentation.

Literature

• Introduction to Modern Cosmology
  A. Liddle
  Wiley, 2003
• Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology: An Introduction
  P. Schneider
  Springer Verlag, 2015
• Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

SoSe 2019

Assessment

Assessment: grade is based on (i) a single one-hour written exam held at the end of the course (100%) and (ii) homework (pass/fail per sheet) (20%). Full marks can be achieved with the exam. The homework can yield up to 20% bonus points.

Summary

Summary: This course gives an elementary introduction to astrophysics on the scales of galaxies and beyond. Much of the material will be presented on a blackboard which means that attendance is strongly recommended. The lecture will be held in English. There will be an emphasis on solving problems and the course will conclude with a written exam.

Lecture

• Script scan
• Galaxies notes (slides by Wolfram Schmidt)
• Slides shown in lecture
• Galaxy Clusters notes

Exercise

• Problem sheet 1
• Problem sheet 2
• Problem sheet 3
• Problem sheet 4
• Problem sheet 5
• Problem sheet 6
• Problem sheet 7
• Problem sheet 8

Literature

• Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology: An Introduction
  P.Schneider
  Springer Verlag, 2015
• High-Energy Astrophysics
  S. Rosswog, M. Brüggen
  Cambridge University Press, 2007
• Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

SoSe 2023

Anmerkung zu den Vorträgen

• Vorträge können auf deutsch oder englisch gehalten werden. Dasselbe gilt für die Folien.
• Vortragszeit ist strikt auf 15 Minuten beschränkt (auch bei Teamvorträgen). Entsprechend sollten nicht mehr als circa 12 slides verwendet werden.
• Die Folien senden Sie mir nach dem Vortrag als pdf zu. Eine weitere schriftliche Ausarbeitung ist nicht nötig.
• Achten Sie auf Quellenangaben bei der Verwendung von Bildern etc.
• Aktive Teilnahme durch Fragen/Diskussion zählt 50% zur Note.
• Teilnahme an allen Terminen ist verpflichtend.

Programm für den Donnerstag 20.06.2024

• 9:00 Sherma: What produces cosmic rays?
• 9:20 Weber: IceCube
• 9:40 Lühmann: The arrow of time
• 10:00 Meyns: The central black hole in the Milky Way
• 10:20 Kruck: Black hole information paradox
• 10:40  Burmeister: Gravitationswellen
• 11:00 Break
• 11:20 Stern: How do black holes grow?
• 11:40 Hetzer: The multiverse
• 12:00 Eschholz: The crisis in cosmology

Literatur

• How will the Universe end? 

                https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-will-the-universe-end-20230222/

• The Universe's first stars? 

                https://www.quantamagazine.org/astronomers-say-they-have-spotted-the-universes-first-stars-20230130/

• The Arrow of Time 

                https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/08/02/158-david-wallace-on-the-arrow-of-time/

• IceCUBE
  Physical Review, Supplement [0369-9706] Aartsen, M G yr:2013 vol:87 iss:6 pg:062002
• Gamma-ray astronomy
  http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05190
• Misconceptions about the big bang
  Lineweaver, Charles H., Davis, Tamara M., Scientific American, 00368733, Mar2005, Vol. 292, Issue 3
• How do radio interferometers work?
  https://www.astron.nl/~mag/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=radio_astronomy_course_description
• Event Horizon Telescope
  https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_EHT
• New concepts of space flight
  http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01356
• Gravitational waves
  https://www.sciencenews.org/editors-picks/gravitational-waves
  https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.05805.pdf
• The Square Kilometre Array
  https://www.skatelescope.org/science/
• The Extremely Large Telescope
  https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/science/doc/eelt_sciencecase.pdf
• The Multiverse

               https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2022/06/06/200-solo-the-philosophy-of-the-multiverse/

              https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0511037

• The new crisis in cosmology (The Hubble constant)  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-dispute-over-a-single-number-became-a-cosmological-crisis/ 

• The central black hole in the Milky Way (Nobel Prize 2020) https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.0064

WiSe 2019/2020

Anmerkung zu den Vorträgen

• Vorträge können auf deutsch oder englisch gehalten werden. Dasselbe gilt für slides.
• Vorträgzeit ist strikt auf 15 Minuten beschränkt. Entsprechend sollten nicht mehr als 12 slides verwendet werden.
• Die slides senden Sie mir nach dem Vortrag als pdf zu. Eine weitere schriftliche Ausarbeitung ist nicht nötig.
• Achten Sie auf Quellenangaben bei der Verwendung von Bildern etc.

Programm für den Montag 16.01.2023

• 09:00  Vishnu Narayan Manoj Kumar: Connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos
• 09:20  Aleena Reji: Connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos
• 09:40  Cheriyan Varghese: How to detect cosmic rays
• 10:00  Daniel Elinjikkal: How to weigh Black holes
• 10:20  Snigdha Bhattacharjee: What are fast radio bursts?
• 10:40 BREAK
• 11:00  Luisa Blum: Superintelligence
• 11:20 Wasif Shaqil: The circumgalactic medium
• 11:40 Rohan Gupta: How do Black holes grow?
• 12:00 Anna-Malin Lemke: The screwy Universe: parity violation, quintessence, Dark Energy
• 12:20 Zeyue Wu: How do black holes grow?
• 12:40 Sumukh Venkatesh Makam: What produces cosmic rays?
• 13:00 Utkarsh Bhatnagar:The Black Hole Information Paradox: A Resolution on the Horizon

Literatur

• How do black holes grow?
  • "What Drives the Growth of Black Holes?"
    Alexander & Hickox 2011, New Astronomy reviews
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011arXiv1112.1949A
  • "Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies"
    John Kormendy, Luis C. Ho 2013
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.7762
  • "The Growth of the Stellar Seeds of Supermassive Black Holes"
    Jarrett L. Johnson, Daniel J. Whalen, Christopher L. Fryer, Hui Li 2012
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.2726
• How to weigh black holes? The M-sigma relation
  • Observations
    • https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_EHT
    • "A Fundamental Relation between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies."
      Ferrarese and Merritt 2000, ApJL, 539, 9
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ApJ...539L...9F
    • "A Relationship between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion."
      Gebhardt et al. 2000, ApJL, 539, 13
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ApJ...539L..13G
    • "The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges, and Determinations of Their Intrinsic Scatter."
      Gultekin et al. 2009, ApJ, 698, 198
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ...698..198G
    • "Precise Black Hole Masses from Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass."
      Greene et al. 2010, ApJ, 721, 26
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ...721...26G
    • "Black Holes in Pseudobulges and Spheroidals: A Change in the Black Hole-Bulge Scaling Relations at Low Mass."
      Greene et al. 2008, ApJ, 688, 159
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008ApJ...688..159G
  • Models / Explanations
    • "Dark matter haloes determine the masses of supermassive black holes."
      Booth and Schaye 2010, MNRAS, 405, 1
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010MNRAS.405L...1B
    • "The Evolution of the M_BH-sigma Relation."
      Robertson et al. 2006, ApJ, 641, 90
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006ApJ...641...90R
    • "Large-scale outflows in galaxies."
      King et al. 2011, MNRAS, 415, 6
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011MNRAS.415L...6K
    • "Self-regulated star formation and the black hole-galaxy bulge relation."
      Power et al. 2011, MNRAS, 413, 110
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011MNRAS.413L.110P
• What does redshift really mean?
  • "Eppur si espande"
    Marek A. Abramowicz, Stanislaw Bajtlik, Jean-Pierre Lasota, Audrey Moudens
    http://de.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612155
  • "Expanding Space: the Root of all Evil?"
    Francis, Matthew J.; Barnes, Luke A.; Berian James, J.; Lewis, Geraint F.
    eprint arXiv:0707.0380
  • "Coordinate Confusion in Conformal Cosmology"
    Lewis, Geraint F.; Francis, Matthew J.; Barnes, Luke A.; Berian James, J.
    eprint arXiv:0707.2106
  • "Cosmological Radar Ranging in an Expanding Universe"
    Lewis, Geraint F.; Francis, Matthew J.; Barnes, Luke A.; Kwan, Juliana; Berian James, J.
    eprint arXiv:0805.2197

  • "A diatribe on expanding space"
    Peacock, J. A.
    eprint arXiv:0809.4573

  • "A short answer to critics of our article "Eppur si espande" [arXiv:astro-ph/0612155]"
    Abramowicz, Marek A.; Bajtlik, Stanislaw; Lasota, Jean-Pierre; Moudens, Audrey
    eprint arXiv:0812.3266
  • "Eppur si muove"
    Chodorowski, Michał
    eprint arXiv:0812.3972
  • "The Adventures of the Rocketeer: Accelerated Motion Under the Influence of Expanding Space"
    Kwan, Juliana; Lewis, Geraint F.; Berian James, J.
    eprint arXiv:0909.1551
• What produces cosmic rays?
  • "High-energy cosmic-ray acceleration"
    M. Bustamante
    http://cds.cern.ch/record/1249755/files/p533.pdf
  • "The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays"
    Kumiko Kotera, Angela V. Olinto
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4256
  • "The Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays"
    Beatty, James J.; Westerhoff, Stefan
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ARNPS..59..319B
• What are fast radio bursts?
  • "The host galaxy of a fast radio burst"
    Keane et al.
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016Natur.530..453K
  • "TNo precise localization for FRB 150418: claimed radio transient is AGN variability"
    Williams et al.
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016arXiv160208434W
• Superintelligence
  • "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era "
    https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
  • "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence"
    http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
• The connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos
  • Wechsler & Tinker: Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics
    https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03097
• The Black Hole Information Paradox:A Resolution on the Horizon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IpRN5YP0q4

               https://physics.berkeley.edu/news-events/news/20201108/the-black-hole-paradox-nears-its-end

              https://www.jstor.org/stable/24993702?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents

• The screwy Universe: parity violation, quintessence, Dark Energy 

                https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2006/05/31/the-screwy-universe/ 

               https://wwwmpa.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~komatsu/presentation/birefringence_copernics.pdf

              and references therein

• 10. The circumgalactic medium  https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.09180

WiSe 2019/2020

Literatur

• Das James Webb Space Telescope
  http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/
• Das Square Kilometre Array
  https://www.skatelescope.org/
• Der Planck Satellit
  http://sci.esa.int/planck/
• Gallerie von SOHO Bildern
  http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/
• Was passiert wenn man in ein schwarzes Loch fällt?
  http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150525-a-black-hole-would-clone-you

Mit dem 3m-Radioteleskop der Hamburger Sternwarte wird im Rahmen des F-Praktikums die 21cm-Linie des neutralen Wasserstoffs in der Mlichstrasse vermessen. Mit der abgeleiteten Rotationskurve lässt sich die grobe Masse unserer Galaxies abschätzen.

Weiterführende Links:

Das Praktikum für Fortgeschrittene (PHY-FP)