The%20Nobel%20prize%20in%20Physics%202006

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The Nobel prize in Physics 2006
VU October 4, 2006

• piet mulders

pjg.mulders_at_few.vu.nl
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Physics2006

• John C. Mather (1946)
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD,
  USA
• (PhD from Berkeley)
• George F. Smoot (1945)
• University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
• (PhD from MIT)

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for
For their discovery of the blackbody form and
anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background
radiation
From www.nobel.se The Nobel Prize in Physics
2006 has been awarded to U.S. physicists John
Mather (NASA) and George Smoot (LBL) for their
discovery of the basic form of the cosmic
microwave background radiation as well as its
small variations in different directions. The
very detailed observations that the laureates
have carried out from the COBE satellite have
played a major role in the development of modern
cosmology into a precise science.
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Measuring temperatures in the universe
Looking at the color (maximum of light emission)
or more general to the form of the emission
spectrum
These emission shapes can also be created in a
lab and were first described by Max Planck (Nobel
prize 1918)
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History of the CMB

• Expanding universe (Friedmann 1922, Lemaitre
  1927, Willem de Sitter) and redshift (Edwin
  Hubble 1929)
• Richard Tolman (working with Hubble) showed in
  1934 that cooling blackbody radiation in an
  expanding universe retains its form
• Prediction of Cosmic Background Radiation (George
  Gamov 1948 Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman 1950)
• Accidental observation of Cosmic Microwave
  Background (CMB) at Bell Labs by Arno Penzias
  Robert Wilson 1965 (Nobel prize 1978)
• Robert Dicke, Peebles, Roll and Dave Wilkinson
  1965 realized immediately that CMB had been
  found!

Origin of the CMB
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13.7 billion years ago
BIG BANG
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inflatie
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and finally now
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History of COBE satellite
FIRAS

• Announcement of NASA of opportunities for small
  space-based experiments in 1974
• COBE mission (delayed by 1986 shuttle accident)
  is launched by rocket in 1989 (Mather)
• Measurement of shape of CMB shows a perfect
  Planckian shape with T 2.726 K (Smoot 1990)

FIRAS optical paths
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The COBE satellite
DMR
Measurements of fluctuations in the CMB 10-5 K
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Temperature maps of sky
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COBE and WMAP
T 2.728 K

• Uniform distribution

• A dipole effect corresponding to the motion of
  Earth with respect to CMB rest frame (about 600
  km/s)
• Effect of our own galaxy (choosen as the equator
  of the projection)
• Quadrupole (Sachs/Wolfe)

DT mK

• Absence of other mK variations gives support to
  inflation models and dark matter

DT 10 mK
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Cosmology becoming a precision science
WMAP data
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Future of CMB research

• COBE (1989-1993)
• WMAP (2001-present)
• Planck
• Planck is part of the ESA Horizon 2000
  Scientific Program. Its scientific goal is to
  measure the CMB anisotropies at all angular
  scales larges than 5-10 over entire sky with a
  precision of 2x10-6
• It is planned to launch Planck in the first
  quarter of 2007. After launch, Planck will be
  directed to the second Lagrangian point of the
  Earth-Sun System.

• Combine with other messengers from universe
• Neutrinos (ANTARES, AMANDA, KM3NET)
• UHECR (Auger, LOFAR)
• Gravitational waves (VIRGO, LISA)

1.5 x 106 km
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Summary

• An excellent decision of the Nobel committee
• COBE and follow-up mission WMAP have changed our
  view of the universe
• Cosmology has become a precision science
• Dark matter is no longer exotic and in
  combination with other experiments (astronomical
  and lab experiments at LHC) within reach
• The history of the early universe
  (with scenarios like inflation) come
  within experimental reach

visible, gravitational (blue) and X-ray (red)
picture of bullet cluster