1,827 research outputs found
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
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
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
Inflation after Planck and BICEP2
We discuss the inflationary paradigm, how it can be tested, and how various
models of inflation fare in the light of data from Planck and BICEP2. We
introduce inflation and reheating, and discuss temperature and polarisation
anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation due to quantum
fluctuations during inflation. Fitting observations of the anisotropies with
theoretical realisations obtained by varying various parameters of the
curvature power spectrum and cosmological parameters enables one to obtain the
allowed ranges of these parameters. We discuss how to relate these parameters
to inflation models which allows one to rule in or out specific models of
inflation.Comment: Slightly longer version of a plenary review talk at the XXI DAE-BRNS
High Energy Physics Symposium at IIT Guwahati, Dec.8-12, 2014. 14 pages, 7
fig
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