Coherent Phase Argument for Inflation

Cosmologists have developed a phenomenally successful picture of structure in the universe based on the idea that the universe expanded exponentially in its earliest moments. There are three pieces of evidence for this exponential expansion -- {\it inflation} -- from observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. First, the shape of the primordial spectrum is very similar to that predicted by generic inflation models. Second, the angular scale at which the first acoustic peak appears is consistent with the flat universe predicted by inflation. Here I describe the third piece of evidence, perhaps the most convincing of all: the phase coherence needed to account for the clear peak/trough structure observed by the WMAP satellite and its predecessors. I also discuss alternatives to inflation that have been proposed recently and explain how they produce coherent phases.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, Invited Talk at Fourth Tropical Workshop, Cairns, Australia, June 200

Backgrounds and Projected Limits from Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments

A simple formula is introduced which indicates the amount by which projections of dark matter direct detection experiments are expected to be degraded due to backgrounds.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, code available at http://home.fnal.gov/~dodelson/dm.htm

Cosmic Microwave Background: Past, Future, and Present

I explain the origin and evolution of anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and argue that upcoming experiments will measure cosmological and fundamental parameters very accurately. Most of the paper focuses on present data, which strongly suggest that the universe is flat. Several arguments are given to prove that present data sets are not contaminated by systematics. New techniques to compare different experiments visually are introduced. These are illustrated for two years of the MSAM and Python experiments.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, plenary talk at Lepton-Photon 99, to be published in International Journal of Modern Physic