This course is coordinated by Prof. Nelson Nunes (IA/U. Lisbon and OLA). In this short course, major topics such as the beginning of the Universe, the formation of primordial elements, how the first structures were created, why we need dark matter and why the Universe is accelerating are addressed.
Program
Saturday
11h00
-Welcome to the participants
-Early ideas on cosmology and cosmogony
13h00 Lunch
14h00
– Hubble’s law and the expansion of the Universe
– Einstein, Friedmann and Lemaitre
– Particles in the Universe
– Neutrinos and the electrons
– The Big Bang nucleosynthesis
16h30 Break
17h30-19h30
– Photon decoupling and the cosmic background radiation
– Dark matter
– Formation of structure in the Universe
– Dark energy and the acceleration of the Universe
Sunday
11h00
– Inflation in the early Universe
– Theories of extradimensions and other strange ideas
13h00 End of the course
Registration: 60€
Registration up to two days before the start of the course. Please send us an email to cursos @ olagoalqueva.pt with the subject “Astronomy Course”.
Nelson Nunes has a first degree in Technological Physics Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and a PhD in Physics from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Nelson was a researcher in cosmology in London, Minnesota, Cambridge and Heidelberg. In 1998 was a member of one of the teams that found out in that year that the Universe is currently accelerating. He has been working in the construction of theoretical models that attempt to explain the nature of this acceleration. At the moment he is a researcher of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences and teaches in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He is the director of the Observatório do Lago Alqueva in Monsaraz, Alentejo.