READING LIST
A good review paper for some of the cosmological background motivation for dark energy/cosmological constant is `The Cosmological constant' Sean M. Carroll Living Rev.Rel.4:1,2001 This can be found online for free at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0004075 a more advanced treatment of some of the ideas we will discuss is `Quantum Gravity in Everyday Life: General Relativity as an Effective Field Theory' C.P. Burgess Living Rev.Rel.7:5,2004. http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2004-5/ http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0311082 It will be helpful if you are already familiar with some of the basics of general relativity and quantum field theory. A particularly good intro to QFT is: `Quantum field theory in a nutshell' A. Zee (Princeton University Press) but otherwise there are many standard texts like Ryder and Peskin&Schroeder which are useful. and to GR is `Introducing Einstein's Relativity' Ray D'inverno (Oxford University Press) again their are many good books. If you haven't already it is worth investing in one of each.
