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David Spergel |
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"Cosmology After WMAP" |
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The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
has made an accurate full-sky measurement of the microwave
background temperature and polarization fluctuations. These
measurements probe both the physics of the very early universe and
the basic properties of the universe today. The WMAP measurements
rigorously test our standard cosmological model and provide an
accurate determination of basic comological parameters (the
curvature of the universe, its matter density and composition).
When combined with other astronomical measurements, the measurements
constrain the properties of the dark energy and the mass of the
neutrino. The observations also directly probe the physics of
inflation: the current data imply that the primordial fluctuations
were primarily adiabatic and nearly scale invariant. |