Review Sheet--Final

Reading: Web Notes (for overview), Chapter 26 & 27 (C&M), plus earlier reading assignments.

Do the reading, look at the questions at the end of each chapter for practice, look at Review Sheets for Tests 1 & 2, and for the last week of the course, consider the following.

Cosmology

• What gives rise to the CMBR? What is it produced? What stage in the evolution of the Universe do we study when we observe the CMBR?
• What is the CNB? Why would it be important for us to detect the CNB? When was it produced?
• What is the rough chemical composition of the Universe? How does this observed result compare with the predictions of the Big Bang? What is meant by Nucleosynthesis? When did nucleosynthesis occur? Why aren't elements heavier than H and He produced in large amounts in the Big Bang? In particular, what role does Berylium play in the limiting of the kinds of elements produced in the Big Bang? Nuclear reactions proceed faster at high temperatures than at low temperatures. So, why didn't element production begin until the relatively low temperature of ~ 1 billion K? What is tunneling? Why is it necessary for element production?
• Roughly, what is the value of the Hubble constant in terms of the age of the Universe? (that is, what is the age of the Universe predicted by the current measured value of the Hubble constant?)
• If the Universe is flat, how much of the Universe is dark matter? How much is normal baryonic matter? How much is dark energy?
• What is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Give some examples of how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle manifests itself. What are virtual pairs of particles? What is pair production? What is annihilation? What does it mean to say particles have frozen out of the cooling Universe? What is the Particle Threshold Temperature? What is the meaning of Einstein's famous relation E = mc²? What determines the Threshold Temperature for protons/anti-protons, neutrons/anti-neutrons, electrons/positrons, neutrinos/anti-neutrinos, and the other matter/anti-matter particle pairs? That is, why the threshold temperature for protons/anti-protons about 10 trillion K while the threshold temperature for electrons/positrons is 6 billion K?
• What is meant by Planck Era? When did it occur? How well understood is the Planck era? What is the Quark (Hadron) era (what are quarks)? What was the Universe like during the Quark era? What is the Lepton era (what are leptons)? What was the Universe like during the Lepton era? What is Nucleosynthesis (Nuclear) era? What is the Epoch of Recombination (de-coupling)?
• How many forces currently exist in the Universe? What are these forces? How did the number of forces of nature change as the Universe evolved?
• What is inflation? Which mysteries was the inflation theory meant to explain? When did inflation occur? How does the inflation theory fare when compared to data? Does inflation solve the Matter/Anti-matter asymmetry mystery? Does it solve the Cosmological Constant issue?