Here you find a description of the Early Universe course at the university of Heidelberg. The lecture notes, in pdf format and up to date with the schedule, may be downloaded here. The lectures are given by Carlo Baccigalupi at the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ITA) of the Heidelberg university, seminar room 2 Albert-Ã~\berle strasse 3-5, every friday at 11:00, starting in the last week of April, ending in July, 2006.

The aim of the course is to give an overview of the physical model of the early universe, focusing on those describing the early era of cosmic acceleration, known as the inflation. That includes the theory of cosmological perturbations, and how those are thought to be generated during the inflationary era. A link to the present observations, and to the modern era of acceleration driven by the dark energy, will be also made. At the end of the course, the students should be able to face and understand any scientific publication on inflationary cosmology, and to undertake a master or PhD thesis on that subject. The topic which will be covered are:

• pre-inflationary cosmology,
  
• kinematic of inflation,
  
• scalar fields in cosmology,
  
• inflationary models,
  
• the origin of cosmological perturbations,
  
• testing inflation with cosmic microwave background anisotropies
• inflation and dark energy.
  

The course is as self-contained as possible, aimed at advanced students after the Vordiplom with a general interest in cosmology and particle physics. It may be useful to have attended the theoretical astrophysics and cosmology courses given by prof. Matthias Bartelmann in summer 2004 and winter 2005, as well as the course on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in winter 2006.