The Incredible Advances in Cosmology of the Last Decade

[Tanelorn]

What advances is theoretical or observational cosmology in the last decade have for you been the most impressive?

This is open to all, but especially to the pros!

 

[mathman]

Dark energy discovery (1990's) and extra-solar planets.

 

[marcus]

This seems like a hard problem. Mathman mentioned two great discoveries but one is not in cosmology and the other wasn't made in the last decade.

Finding extrasolar planets is local astronomy, can't really call it cosmology. Dark energy might simply be a positive Lambda in the Einstein equation, and not properly be called an energy. The discovery of a positive cosmo constant Lambda was indeed a great discovery. However it came in 1998.

Let's try to think of the 4 or 5 most impressive discoveries in cosmology that actually occurred in the last decade.

Would one of them be the mapping of clouds of dark matter by weak gravitational lensing (WGL)?
Astronomers have been able to make contour maps showing the density of DM surrounding clusters of galaxies. In effect "seeing" the DM by how it's gravity optically distorts images in the background. One famous case of this was the "Bullet Cluster" observation---actually of two clusters of galaxies having collided and passed through each other.

 

[BillSaltLake]

The WMAP observations (starting in 2001, which was the first release) pin down the CMB angular statistics much better.

 

[Tanelorn]

Perhaps a better question would be, what are the 10 most significant discoveries or advances in the field of Cosmology?

 

[bapowell]

WMAP's discovery of correlated adiabatic polarization anisotropies on superhorizon scales. Perhaps the strongest evidence so far for inflation.

 

[turbo]

Scroll down to 11/2 and then reflect on how much theoretical aspects in cosmology have accommodated observations. You might have to bring a big BS filter if you are a fan of conventional cosmology.

http://www.stsci.edu/institute/itsd/information/streaming/archive/STScIScienceColloquiaFall2005/

 

[marcus]

How about the standard structure-formation model? Realized in computer simulations, starts out with uniformly distributed ordinary and dark matter, with very slight fluctuations estimated from CMB. The simulation shows DM falling together into concentrations which then help ordinary matter concentrations (such as galaxies) to form. And the picture resulting is remarkably like what we see----checks with observation in many ways.

Example of current state of structure-formation modeling is this video talk by Simon White (one of the top people in this area)
http://pirsa.org/11030121/
Excellent talk, well worth watching.

Can a computer model that simulates the gradual formation of the U be called a "discovery"?

 

[Tanelorn]

Thanks for replies everyone, and Turbo, I agree, you can never have too much cowbell!

I liked slide 44, which shows that the universe is ionized hydrogen (protons) and thus opaque, from 300k years to 1B years.
So does this mean that there is little of none ionized gas still remaining in interstellar space?
How did such large black holes form so quickly after the BB?


Marcus, I am really enjoying the presentation by simon White, not finished yet.