Prompted by the recent MAXIMA-1 and BOOMERANG-98 measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum, and motivated by the results from the observation of high-redshift Type Ia supernovae, we investigate CMB anisotropies in quintessence models in order to characterize the nature of the dark energy today. We perform a Bayesian likelihood analysis, using the MAXIMA-1 a...

Multi-frequency measurements of the microwave sky can be decomposed into maps of distinct physical components such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect. Each of the multi–frequency measurements is a convolution of the spectrum on the sky with the bandpass of the instrument. Here we analytically calculate the contamination of the component maps that can...

We study the effects of diffuse Galactic, far-infrared extragalactic source, and radio point source emission on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data anticipated from the MAP experiment. We focus on the correlation function and genus statistics measured from mock MAP foreground-contaminated CMB anisotropy maps generated in a spatially-flat cosmological constant dominated cosmolo...

Over the last decade, cosmological observations have attained a level of precision which allows for very detailed comparison with theoretical predictions. We are beginning to learn the answers to some fundamental questions, using information contained in Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy (CMBA) data. In this talk, we briefly review some studies of the current and prospected constraints imp...

We report on the first flight of the balloon-borne QMAP experiment. The experiment is designed to make a map of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy on angular scales from 0. ◦70 to several degrees. Using the map we determine the angular power spectrum of the anisotropy in multipole bands from l ∼ 40 to l ∼ 140. The results are consistent with the Saskatoon (SK) measurements. The frequenc...

We explore methods of fitting templates to cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, and in particular demonstrate the application of the total convolver algorithm as a fast method of performing a search over all possible locations and orientations of the template relative to the sky. This analysis includes investigation of issues such as chance alignments and foreground residuals. We apply these...

Weak lensing of galaxies by large-scale structure can potentially measure cosmological quantities as accurately as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). However, the relation between observables and fundamental parameters is more complex and degenerate, especially in the full space of adiabatic cold dark matter models considered here. We introduce a Fisher matrix analysis of the information co...

The Rees-Sciama (RS) effect produces fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) through the time-dependent gravitational potential in the nonlinear stages of evolution. I investigate the RS effect on the CMB angular power spectrum Cl for several CDM models by combining the results of N-body simulations with second order perturbation theory. The amplitude of the RS fluctuations peaks ...

HEALPix – the Hierarchical Equal Area iso-Latitude Pixelization – is a versatile data structure with an associated library of computational algorithms and visualization software that supports fast scientific applications executable directly on very large volumes of astronomical data and large area surveys in the form of discretized spherical maps. Originally developed to address the data proces...

In this paper we update our previous result on the test of the CPT symmetry with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements. A CPT violating interaction in the photon sector Lcs ∼ pμAν F̃ gives rise to a rotation of the polarization vectors of the propagating CMB photons. Recently the WMAP group used the newly released polarization data of WMAP5 to measure this rotation angle ∆α and obtained...