We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2009
Introduction
The completion of the recent balloon experiments BOOMERANG, MAXIMA-1, TOP-HAT and ground-based experiments DASI, CBI and VSA ushered in a new phase in the experimental investigation of anisotropy and polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The satellite WMAP, launched successfully in June 2001, opened a new era in the study of the CMB anisotropy and polarization, which differs from previous experiments in its greater accuracy of finding the characteristics of the cosmological signal, and hence of the cosmological parameters. We mean here the Hubble constant H0, the density Ωb of the baryonic fraction of matter in the Universe, the hidden mass density Ωdm, the dark energy density ΩΛ (the vacuum?), the exponent n in the spectrum of adiabatic perturbations, and a number of others.
An international satellite, PLANCK, whose aim is to measure anisotropy and polarization of the primordial radiation with unprecedented accuracy is scheduled for launch in 2007. The accepted opinion is that PLANCK will summarize more than 35 years of progress in the theoretical and experimental study of polarization and anisotropy of the CMB and will allow us to come very close to building a realistic model of the Universe.
Before discussing the main features contributed by WMAP and PLANCK, we briefly sum up the results achieved by radioastronomy and cosmology in studying the CMB anisotropy.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
