Signatures of Cosmic Structure Formation in the Microwave Background ...

• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Perimeter Institute 2011
• Subjects: Particle Physics; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48660/11030069; https://pirsa.org/11030069

On small scales the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is perturbed by large scale structure in the universe, primarily through Compton scattering and gravitational lensing. The current generation of CMB experiments is measuring these signals, allowing new measurements of the build-up of cosmic structure. I will discuss two such measurements being made with the South Pole Telescope: 1) through Compton scattering (the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect) we have compiled a large catalog of very massive galaxy clusters extending to z>1, allowing a measure of the growth of structure from z=1 to today; 2) we are currently measuring the gravitational lensing of the CMB, providing an accurate measure of the integrated structure between z=0 and z=1100. Both of these are powerful new tests of our cosmological understanding. ...