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COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND ANISOTROPIES
Wayne Hu 1, 2, 3 and Scott
Dodelson 2, 3
1 Center
for Cosmological Physics,
University of
Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
2 NASA/Fermilab
Astrophysics Center, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510
3 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
University of
Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
Abstract. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature
anisotropies have and will continue to revolutionize
our understanding of cosmology. The recent discovery
of the previously predicted acoustic peaks in the power spectrum
has established a working cosmological model: a critical density
universe consisting of mainly dark matter and dark energy,
which formed its structure through gravitational instability
from quantum fluctuations during an inflationary epoch.
Future observations should test this model and measure its
key cosmological parameters with unprecedented precision.
The phenomenology and cosmological
implications of the acoustic peaks are developed in detail.
Beyond the peaks, the yet to be detected
secondary anisotropies and polarization present opportunities
to study the physics of inflation and the dark energy.
The analysis techniques devised to extract cosmological information
from voluminous CMB data sets are outlined, given their
increasing importance in experimental cosmology as a whole.
Keywords: background radiation, cosmology, theory, dark matter,
early universe
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
- OBSERVABLES
- Standard Cosmological Paradigm
- CMB Temperature Field
- CMB Polarization Field
- ACOUSTIC PEAKS
- Basics
- Initial Conditions
- Gravitational Forcing
- Baryon Loading
- Radiation Driving
- Damping
- Polarization
- Integral Approach
- Parameter Sensitivity
- BEYOND THE PEAKS
- Matter Power Spectrum
- Gravitational Secondaries
- Scattering Secondaries
- Non-Gaussianity
- DATA ANALYSIS
- Mapmaking
- Bandpower Estimation
- Cosmological Parameter Estimation
- DISCUSSION
- REFERENCES
