Cosmic Microwave Background primer

[Chronos]

As a fan of easy reading material on thorny topics, I thought some might find this interesting:

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601307
Cosmic Microwave Background Mini-Review

 

[Garth]

Thank you Chronos - nice paper, though I thought it could have been a little more critical and included caveats where appropiate: no discussion of the low-l mode deficiency instead it says:"

We have suppressed some of the low-ℓ and high-ℓ band-powers which have large error bars.
...
The multipole axis here is linear, so the Sachs-Wolfe plateau is hard to see.

and does not mention the fact that the S-W plateau is actually missing. No discussion about the 'axis of evil', the effect of which may completely change the interpretation put upon the data.

And when is the WMAP year 2 release date?

Garth

 

[Chronos]

Agreed. But, you must admit you are a bit more advanced [and demanding] than most audiences, Garth. You like the tough stuff. Personally, I think the SW plateau is missing because instrument sensitivity is just not as good as hoped. WMAP year 2 results should be released a week from friday . . .

 

[Nereid]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=107024"* (or, in this case, Tomarcus'ed ... but it doesn't roll off the tongue so well, does it?)

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toseek" (for those unfamiliar).

 

[Garth]

WMAP year 2 results should be released a week from friday . . .

I've heard that one before...

Garth

 

[EL]

WMAP year 2 results should be released a week from friday . . .

Wow! Is this official?

 

[Chronos]

They have not yet announced which friday . . .

 

[Garth]

A paper today on the large scale, low l-mode CMB anisotropies, accepted for publication in A&A:
On the CMB large-scales angular correlations

We found that the, already known, anomalous lack of large-scale power in full-sky CMB maps are mainly due to missing angular correlations of quadrupole-like signature. This result is robust with respect to frequency CMB maps and cut-sky masks. Moreover, we also confirm previous results regarding the unevenly distribution in the sky of the large-scale power of WMAP data. In a bin-to-bin correlations analyses, measured by the full covariance matrix chi^2 statistic, we found that the angular correlations signatures in opposite Galactic hemispheres are anomalous at the 98%-99% confidence level.

Garth