McGill.CA / Science / Department of Physics

Physical Society Colloquium

Interview for Faculty Position

The Cosmic Microwave Background at High Resolution

Gilbert Holder

Princeton

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) has been a gold mine for cosmology, but up to now most studies have been at relatively coarse resolution (tens of arcminutes). At higher resolution (a few arcminutes or better) a wealth of information is imprinted in the CMB from structures that have formed relatively recently. These imprints are primarily from Compton scattering (the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect) and gravitational lensing. I will review recent work in high-resolution studies of the CMB and explain the prospects for near-future (a few months to a few years) experiments to precisely measure cosmological parameters, study the process of structure formation in the universe, and better understand the properties of dark energy.

Wednesday, February 11th 2004, 16:00
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103)