Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Homogeneous and Isotropic Universe
- 2 Perturbation Theory
- 3 Initial Conditions
- 4 CMB Anisotropies
- 5 CMB Polarization and the Total Angular Momentum Approach
- 6 Non-Gaussianities
- 7 Lensing and the CMB
- 8 Observations of Large-Scale Structure
- 9 Cosmological Parameter Estimation
- 10 The Frequency Spectrum of the CMB
- Appendix 1 Fundamental Constants, Units and Relations
- Appendix 2 General Relativity
- Appendix 3 Perturbations
- Appendix 4 Special Functions
- Appendix 5 Special Functions
- Appendix 6 Mixtures
- Appendix 7 Statistical Utensils
- Appendix 8 Approximation for the Tensor Cℓ Spectrum
- Appendix 9 Boltzmann Equation in a Universe with Curvature
- Appendix 10 Perturbations of the Luminosity Distance
- References
- Index
9 - Cosmological Parameter Estimation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Homogeneous and Isotropic Universe
- 2 Perturbation Theory
- 3 Initial Conditions
- 4 CMB Anisotropies
- 5 CMB Polarization and the Total Angular Momentum Approach
- 6 Non-Gaussianities
- 7 Lensing and the CMB
- 8 Observations of Large-Scale Structure
- 9 Cosmological Parameter Estimation
- 10 The Frequency Spectrum of the CMB
- Appendix 1 Fundamental Constants, Units and Relations
- Appendix 2 General Relativity
- Appendix 3 Perturbations
- Appendix 4 Special Functions
- Appendix 5 Special Functions
- Appendix 6 Mixtures
- Appendix 7 Statistical Utensils
- Appendix 8 Approximation for the Tensor Cℓ Spectrum
- Appendix 9 Boltzmann Equation in a Universe with Curvature
- Appendix 10 Perturbations of the Luminosity Distance
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter is devoted to parameter estimation. We first discuss the physical dependence of CMB anisotropies on cosmological parameters. After a section on CMB data we then treat in some detail statistical methods for CMB data analysis. We discuss especially the Fisher matrix and explain Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. We also address degeneracies, combinations of cosmological parameters on which CMB anisotropies and polarization depend only weakly. Because of these degeneracies, cosmological parameter estimation also makes use of other, non CMB related, observations especially observations related to the large scale matter distribution. We summarize them and other cosmological observations in two separate sections.
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- The Cosmic Microwave Background , pp. 329 - 387Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020