This is the 2nd edition of a highly successful title on this fascinating and complex subject. Concentrating primarily on the theory behind the origin and the evolution of the universe, and where appropriate relating it to observation, the new features of the this addition include:

• An overall introduction to the book
• Two new chapters: Gravitational Lensing and Gravitational Waves
• Each part has a collection of exercises with solutions to numerical parts at the end of the book
• Contains a table of physical constants
• The addition of a consolidated bibilography

Table of Contents

PART 1 Cosmological Models

1 First Principles

2 The Friedmann Models

3 Alternative Cosmologies

4 Observational Properties of the Universe

PART 2 The Hot Big Bang Model

5Thermal History of the Hot Big Bang Model

6 The Very Early Universe

7 Phase Transitions and Inflation

8 The Lepton Era

9 The Plasma Era

PART 3 Theory of Structure Formation

10 Introduction to Jeans Theory

11 Gravitational Instability of Baryonic Matter

12 Non-baryonic Matter

13 Cosmological Perturbations

14 Nonlinear Evolution

15Models of Structure Formation

PART 4 Observational Tests

16 Statistics of Galaxy Clustering

17 The Cosmic Microwave Background

18 Peculiar Motions of Galaxies

19 Gravitational Lensing

20 The High-Redshift Universe

21 A Forward Look

Appendix A. Physical Constants

Appendix B. Useful Astronomical Quantities

Appendix C. Particle Properties

About the Authors

Peter Coles is a theoretical cosmologist at Cardiff University and Maynooth University. He was formerly the head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex.

Francesco Lucchin is the author of Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure, 2nd Edition, published by Wiley.