‘Standard’ cosmological model and beyond with CMB

Abstract

'Standard' cosmological model and beyond with CMB Tarun Souradeep Published 20 May 2011 • 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 28, Number 11 218 Total downloads Turn on MathJax Get permission to re-use this article Share this article Hide article information Author e-mails tarun@iucaa.ernet.in Author affiliations Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India Dates Received 11 January 2011 Published 20 May 2011 Citation Tarun Souradeep 2011 Class. Quantum Grav. 28 114016 Create citation alert DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/28/11/114016 Buy this article in print Journal RSS feed Sign up for new issue notifications Abstract Observational cosmology has made very rapid progress in the past decade. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation measurements; cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role. Besides precise determination of various parameters of the 'standard' cosmological model, observations have also established some important basic tenets that underlie models of cosmology and structure formation in the universe—'acausally' correlated initial perturbations in a flat, statistically isotropic universe, adiabatic nature of primordial density perturbations. These are consistent with the expectation of the paradigm of inflation and the generic prediction of the simplest realization of an inflationary scenario in the early universe. Furthermore, gravitational instability is the established mechanism for structure formation from these initial perturbations. The signature of primordial perturbations observed as the CMB anisotropy and polarization is the most compelling evidence for new, possibly fundamental, physics in the early universe. The community is now looking beyond the estimation of parameters of a working 'standard' model of cosmology for subtle, characteristic signatures from early universe physics.