TASI Lectures on Primordial Cosmology

Abstract

These lectures cover aspects of primordial cosmology with a focus on observational tests of physics beyond the Standard Model. The presentation is divided into two parts: In Part I, we study the production of new light particles in the hot big bang and describe their effects on the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. In Part II, we investigate the possibility of very massive particles being created during inflation and determine their imprints in higher-order cosmological correlations.

Comments: 77 pages, 31 figures. This is an extended write up of lectures given at TASI 2017