Measuring cosmological parameters with cosmic microwave background experiments

Methodological reflections on the MOND/dark matter debate

The paper re-examines the principal methodological questions, arising in the debate over the cosmological standard model's postulate of Dark Matter vs. rivalling proposals that modify standard (Newtonian and general-relativistic) gravitational theory, the so-called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) and its subsequent extensions. What to make of such seemingly radical challenges of cosmological orthodoxy? In the first part of our paper, we assess MONDian theories through the lens of key ideas of major 20th century philosophers of science (Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Laudan), thereby rectifying widespread misconceptions and misapplications of these ideas common in the pertinent MOND-related literature. None of these classical methodological frameworks, which render precise and systematise the more intuitive judgements prevalent in the scientific community, yields a favourable verdict on MOND and its successors-contrary to claims in the MOND-related literature by some of these theories' advocates; the respective theory appraisals are largely damning. Drawing on these insights, the paper's second part zooms in on the most common complaint about MONDian theories, their ad-hocness. We demonstrate how the recent coherentist model of ad-hocness captures, and fleshes out, the underlying-but too often insufficiently articulated-hunches underlying this critique. MONDian theories indeed come out as severely ad hoc: they do not cohere well with either theoretical or empirical-factual background knowledge. In fact, as our complementary comparison with the cosmological standard model's Dark Matter postulate shows, with respect to ad-hocness, MONDian theories fare worse than the cosmological standard model.

The Cosmological Constant

This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its magnitude, and the physics of a small (and potentially nonzero) vacuum energy.

New constraints on neutrino physics from BOOMERANG data

We have performed a likelihood analysis of the recent data on the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy from the BOOMERANG experiment. These data place a strong upper bound on the radiation density present at recombination. Expressed in terms of the equivalent number of neutrino species the 2sigma bound is N(nu)</=13. This bound is not flavor sensitive. It also applies to the Universe at a much later epoch, and as such places severe limits on scenarios with decaying neutrinos. The bound also yields a firm upper limit on the lepton asymmetry in the Universe.

A Measurement of Omega from the North American Test Flight of Boomerang

We use the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background, measured during the North American test flight of the Boomerang experiment, to constrain the geometry of the universe. Within the class of cold dark matter models, we find that the overall fractional energy density of the universe Omega is constrained to be 0.85</=Omega</=1.25 at the 68% confidence level. Combined with the COBE measurement, the data on degree scales from the Microwave Anisotropy Telescope in Chile, and the high-redshift supernovae data, we obtain new constraints on the fractional matter density and the cosmological constant.

From Microwave Anisotropies to Cosmology

Fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background have now been detected over a wide range of angular scales, and a consistent picture seems to be emerging. This article describes some of the implications for cosmology. Analysis of all of the published detections suggests the existence of a peak on degree scales with a height 2.4 to 10 (90 percent confidence level) times the amplitude of the power spectrum at large angular scales. This result confirms an early prediction, implies that the universe did in fact recombine, and limits theories of structure formation. Illustrative examples show how comparison of the microwave background data and the large-scale structure data will be a potentially powerful means of answering fundamental questions about the universe.