Introduction to the application of dynamical systems theory in the study of the dynamics of cosmological models of dark energy

The theory of dynamical systems is a very complex subject that has produced several surprises in the recent past in connection with the theory of chaos and fractals. The application of the tools of dynamical systems in cosmological settings is less known, in spite of the number of published scientific papers on this subject. In this paper, a mostly pedagogical introduction to the cosmological application of the basic tools of dynamical systems theory is presented. It is shown that, in spite of their amazing simplicity, these tools allow us to extract essential information on the asymptotic dynamics of a wide variety of cosmological models. The power of these tools is illustrated within the context of the so-called Λ-cold dark matter (ΛCDM) and scalar field models of dark energy. This paper is suitable for teachers, undergraduate students, and postgraduate students in the disciplines of physics and mathematics.