Related papers: Particle Physics and the Cosmic Microwave Backgrou…
I review the discovery of the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation. The underlying theory and the implications for cosmology are reviewed, and I describe the prospects for future progress.
The temperature anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provide a window back to the physics of the early universe. They encode the nature of the initial fluctuations and so can reveal much about the…
This set of lectures provides an overview of the basic theory and phenomenology of the cosmic microwave background. Topics include a brief historical review; the physics of temperature and polarization fluctuations; acoustic oscillations of…
This contribution gives a brief overview of the theoretical ideas underlying our current understanding of the early Universe. Confronting the predictions of the early Universe models with cosmological observations, in particular of the…
The Universe is the grandest conceivable scale on which the human mind can strive to understand nature. The amazing aspect of cosmology, the branch of science that attempts to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe, is that it…
Temperature and polarization power spectra of the cosmic microwave background can provide essentially incontrovertible evidence for coherent acoustic oscillations in the early universe. A simple model calculation demonstrates explicitly how…
The Cosmic Microwave Background provides our most ancient image of the Universe and our best tool for studying its early evolution. Theories of high energy physics predict the formation of various types of topological defects in the very…
It is shown that the fluctuation in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background in any direction may be evaluated as an integral involving scalar and dipole form factors, which incorporate all relevant information about acoustic…
It is widely accepted that the Universe underwent a period of thermal equilibrium at very early times. One expects a residue of this primordial state to be imprinted on the large scale structure of space time. In this paper we study the…
The observation of primordial gravitational waves could provide a new and unique window on the earliest moments in the history of the universe, and on possible new physics at energies many orders of magnitude beyond those accessible at…
Cosmology requires new physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles and fields. What is the fundamental physics behind dark matter and dark energy? What generated the initial fluctuations in the early Universe? Polarised light…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provides a remarkable window onto the early universe, revealing its composition and structure. In these lectures we review and discuss the physics underlying the main features of the CMB.
This lecture is a sketch of the physics of the cosmic microwave background. The observed anisotropy can be divided into four main contributions: variations in the temperature and gravitational potential of the primordial plasma, Doppler…
Fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background have now been detected over a wide range of angular scales, and a consistent picture seems to be emerging. This article describes some of the implications for cosmology.…
Microwave background polarization, though presently undetected, is a fundamental prediction of any viable cosmological model. These lectures review the theoretical description of polarization, its physical interpretation, and potentially…
The next generation of instruments designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) will provide a historic opportunity to open the gravitational wave window to the primordial Universe. Through high sensitivity…
Polarization of the cosmic microwave background, though not yet detected, provides a source of information about cosmological parameters complementary to temperature fluctuations. This paper provides a complete theoretical treatment of…
We discuss statistical and physical properties of cosmic microwave background polarization, both in Fourier and in real space. The latter allows for a more intuitive understanding of some of the geometric signatures. We present expressions…
In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics will be made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of these links. Our…
Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature are being studied with ever increasing precision. Two competing types of theories might describe the origins of these fluctuations: ``inflation'' and ``defects''. Here we…