Is cosmology consistent?


Fig 6: 95% constraints on the amount of ordinary (vertical) and dark (horizontal) matter. Bye-bye baryon crisis.
Here's a combination of all data as of May 2001 taking into account calibration and beam errors (click on it for ps):
Here are text files with the corresponding data, window functions and correlation matrix. The window function file above contains 24 columns, giving the window functions W_l for each of the 24 band power measurements with the convention
(dT)^2 = sum W_l (dT_l)^2 = sum l(l+1) W_l C_l/2 pi.
Note that this differs from the traditional definition by a factor of l - it's more approptiate to think of the band power as an average on a linear plot rather than on a log-plot now that we're all plotting small-scale CMB data with a linear l-axis. Also, note that some of these window functions go slightly negative, and that that's OK. The correlation matrix R in the file is related to the covariance matrix C by
C_ij = R_ij sigma_i sigma_j.
You'll find more data details and links here.

Please click here to download our paper. Click here for a set of movies that illustrate the approach of this paper, showing how the CMB and galaxy power spectra are affected by the different cosmological parameters. You're welcome to copy them and do whatever you want with them as long as it doesn't benefit Bill Gates - I put them on the web because some people asked if they could use them for teaching/talks.
Click here if you are interested in other research of mine. 


Authors:

Xiaomin Wang, Max Tegmark, Matias Zaldarriaga

Abstract:

We perform a detailed analysis of the latest CMB measurements (including BOOMERaNG, DASI, Maxima and CBI), both alone and jointly with other cosmological data sets involving, e.g., galaxy clustering and the Lyman Alpha Forest. We first address the question of whether the CMB data are internally consistent once calibration and beam uncertainties are taken into account, performing a series of statistical tests. With a few minor caveats, our answer is yes, and we compress all data into a single set of 24 bandpowers with associated covariance matrix and window functions. We then compute joint constraints on the 11 parameters of the ``standard'' adiabatic inflationary cosmological model. Out best fit model passes a series of physical consistency checks and agrees with essentially all currently available cosmological data. In addition to sharp constraints on the cosmic matter budget in good agreement with those of the BOOMERaNG, DASI and Maxima teams, we obtain a most massive neutrino mass range 0.04-4.2 eV and the sharpest constraints to date on gravity waves which (together with preference for a slight red-tilt) favors``small-field'' inflation models.

Reference info:

astro-ph/0005091, Phys. Rev. D, in press
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This page was last modified February 27, 2002.
max@physics.upenn.edu