Special Topics in Astrophysics: Large Photometric Galaxy Surveys: From Pixels to Cosmology

What is the nature of the dark components of the Universe, such as dark matter and dark energy? How did galaxies form and what is the origin of their rich large-scale structure? How does the Universe change on a near-daily timescale? The large and ambitious Vera Rubin Observatory and its Large Survey of Space and Time (LSST) are being constructed and designed to probe these questions, by taking a picture of the entire Southern sky every three days. This course will introduce the observational, computational, and theoretical tools that underpin the science analyses that Rubin will conduct. Presented in a "topics" form, every step of the chain from pixels to inferences on fundamental cosmological parameters will be discussed.