One half of the course grade will come from student presentations.  These are to be 20 minutes long, allowing for questions,  and should be aimed at your fellow students.  You should provide a brief overview of the topic you are discussing, and then proceed with the specifics.  You are expected to take the subject well beyond what was covered in lecture, to be quantitative where possible, and to convey some of your interest in the subject.

The choice of topic is very much open, so long as it pertains in some way to the subject of the course. Various possible topics are suggested below, but you can come up with your own ideas.  Students who wish to work in groups of 2-3 individuals may do so, and then give back-to-back talks, allowing you to collectively go into much more detail in the subject you have chosen.  In such a case, each person will be graded on the presentation they give themselves only.
I do not want more than one talk on a given topic, unless it is a group talk like mentioned above.  You must come to me with the topic you have in mind, and sign up for a date.  Talks are scheduled below.

1. Monday 5/24, 12:30-1:50
1. Prager: CMB (large angle fluctuation spectrum)
2. Prange: SN evidence for cosmic acceleration
3. Clark: GUT scale baryogenesis
4. ____________________

• Friday 5/28, 12:30-1:50
1. Yoshi: VCDM (w < -1 model)
2. ____________________
3. ____________________
4. _____________________

• Wednesday  6/2, 12:30-2:30, C421 Special spacetime point!
1. Drut: Quintessence
2. Elliott: Axions
3. Zurek: SUSY Dark Matter
4. Akcay: Electroweak baryogenesis
5. Yoon: Gravitational lensing
6. Lin:  Galaxy Formation

• Friday 6/4, 12:30-1:50

1. Hahn: Topological defects I
2. Dominguez: Topological defects II
3. Sorini: Inflation models
4. ________________________




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• CMB fluctuation spectrum
• Theory of acoustic peaks (medium angle)
• Connection with inflation
• Sunyaev-Zeldovitch effect (small angle)
• Sachs-Wolfe effect
• Evidence for a reionization epoch (large angle)
• Correlations in the quadrupole and octapole moments...is the universe a dodecahedron? (large angle)
• Dark matter
• constraints on
• axions as a candidate
• supersymmetric dark matter candidates
• searches for MACHOS
• terrestrial searches
• evidence for
• Inflation
• theories of
• origin of fluctuations
• Cosmology of topological defects
• The cosmic distance ladder (techniques for determining distances)
• Type 1A supernova observations and evidence for acceleration
• Baryogenesis
• theories of GUT baryogenesis
• theories of electroweak baryogenesis
• leptogenesis
• Galaxy formation
• Galaxies counts and correlations
• Star formation
• What can be learned from the Lyman alpha forest
• Gravitational lensing as an observational tool
• Neutrinos in cosmology
• BBN in greater detail
• recombination in greater detail
• Quintessence as dark energy