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Article Contents

ABSTRACT

1.INTRODUCTION

2.FUNDAMENTALS OF THE STANDARD COSMOLOGY

2.1.Homogeneity and Isotropy: The Robertson-Walker Metric

2.2.Dynamics: The Friedmann Equations

2.3.Flat Universes

2.4.Including Curvature

2.5.Horizons

2.6.Geometry, Destiny and Dark Energy

3.OUR UNIVERSE TODAY AND DARK ENERGY

3.1.Matter: Ordinary and Dark

3.2.Supernovae and the Accelerating Universe

3.3.The Cosmic Microwave Background

3.4.The Cosmological Constant Problem(s)

3.5.Dark Energy, or Worse?

4.EARLY TIMES IN THE STANDARD COSMOLOGY

4.1.Describing Matter

4.2.Particles in Equilibrium

4.3.Thermal Relics

4.4.Vacuum displacement

4.5.Primordial Nucleosynthesis

4.6.Finite Temperature Phase Transitions

4.7.Topological Defects

4.8.Baryogenesis

4.9.Baryon Number Violation