Shaul Hanany
University of Minnesota
Note different time
Friday, November 7, 2008
1:00 pm in SPL 57
Probing the Big Bang with the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Abstract: Since its discovery close to 50 years ago, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provided a treasure trove of information about the formation and evolution of the universe. The information came from measurements of the intensity, spectrum, and anisotropy. An inflationary epoch during the first fraction of a second after the bang, in which the universe expands by many orders of magnitude, is strongly supported by these measurements, and by other astrophysical data. I will describe ongoing work on measurements of the polarization of the CMB that will probe the physics of inflation at the GUT energy scale and that might give direct observational evidence for Inflation.
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