Dark Energy – Lectures by Varun Sahni
I thought I’d share this lecture course about Dark Energy here. It was delivered by Varun Sahni at an international school on cosmology earlier this year. The material is quite technical in places but I’m sure these lectures will prove a very helpful introduction to, for example, new PhD students in this area. Varun has been a very good friend and colleague of mine for many years, and he is an excellent lecturer!
Here are the three lectures:
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In the Dark 
June 9, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Though many with theoretical background will be attracted to
these areas of research and of course these are good introductory
stuff. There are beautiful books on this and related topics including
the one by Yun Wang.
However, one need to keep in mind the long term goal even
when staring a PhD. With the current “data deluge”,
model building is Ok, but to get a PDRA one needs to learn
how to test these models. Cosmology is now “data driven” and as I understand is also consistent with LCDM.
Most jobs in the market would involve learning Bayesian
analysis, Machine learning and of course developing
python code.
So, I would say a solid theoretical background may be
necessary but not a sufficient condition for long term survival.
June 9, 2019 at 5:24 pm
Recent work by some authors where the idea that
Einstein’s equations are effectively equation of state
and has thermodynamic origin will have to be taken
seriously if results from LSST/Euclid etc. are still consistent
with LCDM.
The dark energy concept is actually borrowed from
the concept of inflation and probably was introduced
by the seminar paper of Ratra and Peebles. If
the new CMB experiments like LiteBird do not
see gravity wave in CMB polarization B-mode
even inflation will be under scrutiny.
June 14, 2019 at 11:59 pm
Haven’t looked at these yet but if they’re as good as the ones given by Sean Carroll at CERN a few years back and available at his website Preposterous Universe, we’re in for a treat.
Thanks for serving the niche of the reasonably sophisticated consumer of (astro) physics somewhere between the professional and trade paperback reader.
Check out Leonard Susskind’s Theoretical Minimum series of books too. As a retired economist who started out as a math major, this stuff is just perfectly pitched.
Thanks to all the profs who provide this stuff as a public service. Our incentives are seriously messed up with a huge gap between social and market value in so many areas, one comment where an economics education is of some actual value!