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This third edition of Malcolm Longair's highly acclaimed textbook is an up-to-date text on astrophysical cosmology expounding the structure of classical cosmological models from a contemporary viewpoint. This forms the background to a detailed study of the origin of structure and galaxies in the Universe. The derivations of many of the most important results are described using simple physical arguments which illuminate the results of more advanced treatments. A very wide range of recent observational data is brought to bear upon the problems, including the results from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Planck mission of the European Space Agency, galaxy surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the ALMA submillimetre observatory, studies of Type 1a supernovae and many other remarkable recent observations.
This book serves as an ideal text for graduate level courses on astrophysical cosmology and is also highly appreciated as a reference source for professional astrophysicist and cosmologists.
List of contents
Part I Preliminaries.- A Very Brief History of Cosmology and Galaxy Formation.- The Large Scale Structure of the Universe.- Galaxies.- Clusters of Galaxies.- Part II The Basic Framework.- The Theoretical Framework.- An Introduction to Relativistic Gravity.- The Friedman World Models.- The Determination of Cosmological Parameters.- The Thermal History of the Universe.- Nucleosynthesis in the Early Universe.- Part III The Development of Primordial Fluctuations under Gravity.- The Evolution of Density Perturbations in the Standard Big Bang.- More Tools and Problems.- Dark Matter and Galaxy Formation.- Correlation Functions and the Spectrum of the Initial Fluctuations.- The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.- The Post-Recombination Era.- The Evolution of Galaxies and Active Galaxies with Cosmic Epoch.- The Intergalactic Medium.- Making Real Galaxies.- The Very Early Universe.
About the author
Malcolm Longair, CBE, FRS, FRSE is Jacksonian Professor Emeritus of Natural Philosophy and Director of Development, Cavendish Laboratory. He has held many highly respected positions within the fields of physics and astronomy. He was appointed the ninth Astronomer Royal of Scotland in 1980, as well as the Regius Professor of Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, and the Director of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. He was head of the Cavendish Laboratory, the Physics Department of Cambridge University, from 1997 to 2005. He has served on and chaired many international committees, boards and panels, working with both NASA, the European Space Agency and the ERC. He has received much recognition for his work over the years. His main research interests are in high energy astrophysics, astrophysical cosmology and the history of physics and astrophysics. He has chaired numerous committees for specific science projects, including the Planck and Euclid missions of ESA. His major books, in addition to the present volume, include Theoretical Concepts in Physics (3rd edition 2020), High Energy Astrophysics (3rd edition 2011), Quantum Concepts in Physics (2013), the Cosmic Century: A History of Astrophysics and Cosmology (2008) and Maxwell's Enduring Legacy: A Scientific History of the Cavendish Laboratory (2016).
Report
"The book is a good introduction to its many topics for those wanting to go further and a good summary for those for whom the almost eight-hundred pages are enough. Essentially everyone interested in any of the topics should have a copy of this book." (Phillip Helbig, The Observatory, Vol. 144 (1300), June, 2024)
