Gravitation and Cosmology II

Course content

Homogeneity and isotropy of the universe. Maximally symmetric spaces. Bianchi types. Standard cosmological model. Observational cosmology: expansion of the universe. Dust filled and radiation filled universes. Inflationary models. Initial and final singularities (Big bang and big crunch). Chaotic mixmaster cosmology. Quantum cosmology. Wheeler-deWitt equation. Quantum field theory in curved spacetimes.