# Note to the fifth reprint

In this printing, a number of misprints have been corrected. These will inevitably not be the last, and I thank those readers who are kind enough to keep reporting them. I have also taken the opportunity of bringing the contents up to date in a few places, specifically new results on the supernova Hubble diagram (Fig. 5.4) and CMB anisotropies (Fig. 18.2).

Given the pace of cosmological research, I am surprised, but pleased, to see that the basic framework described in the original text survives without the need for revolutionary change. Nevertheless, some very significant developments have occurred since the first printing. Here is a personal list of recent highlights:

(1) Results on atmospheric neutrinos show that the $\mu$ neutrino oscillates, probably to a $\tau$ neutrino. If so, the $\tau$ neutrino mass is $\sim 0.06$~eV, and hot dark matter is unimportant (hep-ex/9912007). The SNO experiment has proved that oscillations are also the explanation for the solar neutrino problem (see e.g. hep-ph/0204314).

(2) The supernova Hubble diagram now argues very strongly for vacuum energy, and an accelerating expansion (see the new Fig. 5.4 and astro-ph/0005229).

(3) Small-scale CMB data show a clear set of acoustic peaks in the power spectrum (see the new figure 18.2). The combination of large-scale structure and CMB data (e.g. astro-ph/0109152 and astro-ph/0206256) requires a flat CDM model with $\Omega_m=0.31\pm0.06$ and $h=0.67\pm0.05$. No tensor anisotropies are required, and the scalar spectrum shows no significant tilt: $n=0.96\pm0.04$. The CMB has also been shown to be linearly polarized, at the expected level (astro-ph/0209478).

(4) Given that the $\Lambda$CDM model works so well on large scales, it is essential to understand the discrepancy with the form of galaxy correlations. Galaxy-formation models are now starting to pinpoint the origin of the required scale-dependent bias (astro-ph/9910488).

(5) Nevertheless, worries about the basic CDM paradigm persist, and are most severe on small scales, where the structure of galaxy-scale dark matter haloes appears not to match observations (astro-ph/9901240 and astro-ph/9907411). The nature of dark matter continues to be perhaps the greatest uncertainty in cosmology.

(6) Quasars have now been detected out to $z=6.28$. This object shows evidence for an intergalactic medium that is much less strongly ionized than at slightly lower redshift (astro-ph/0108097). We may be seeing close to the era of general reionization.

(7) The debate on initial conditions continues. Models with extra dimensions (the brane world') have suggested alternatives to inflation (hep-th/0111030). A small cosmological constant presents a fine-tuning problem, and quintessence' models attempt to solve this by using scalar-field dynamics (astro-ph/9901388). There is an increasingly good case, however, that the a small non-zero vacuum density may need to be explained anthropically (hep-th/0106083).