Peaks in the CMB: Recent results and cosmological parameters from Boomerang
John Ruhl
Department of Physics
University of California, Santa Barbara
Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have
identified multiple peaks in the angular power spectrum of CMB
anisotropies. These peaks confirm the standard picture of the early
universe, where the photons-baryon plasma oscillates in cold dark matter
gravitational potentials prior to the decoupling of photons and matter at
z=1000. The CMB angular power spectrum can be used to probe the details
of the plasma and cold dark matter (eg, how many baryons per photon were
there? how much cold dark matter was there?), as well as constrain the
geometry of the universe. In this talk I will describe the Boomerang
experiment, its measurement of the CMB angular power spectrum, and the
implications for cosmology.