TASI Lectures on Early Universe Cosmology: Inflation, Baryogenesis and Dark Matter

Abstract

These lectures, presented at TASI 2018, provide a concise introduction to inflation, baryogenesis, and aspects of dark matter not covered by the other lectures. The emphasis for inflation is an intuitive understanding and techniques for constraining inflationary models. For baryogenesis we focus on two examples, leptogenesis and electroweak baryogenesis, with attention to singlet-assisted two-step phase transitions. Concerning dark matter, we review different classes of models distinguished by their mechanisms for obtaining the observed relic density, including thermal freeze-out, asymmetric dark matter, freeze-in, SIMP dark matter, the misalignment mechanism for ultralight scalars and axions, and production of primordial black holes during inflation. Problem sets are provided.