Cosmic Microwave Background observations

Authors
Date and time
19 Jul 2011 - 00:00 Europe/London
Address

Aula

Talk language
English
Slides language
English
Serie number
2
Description

In the first part of this talk I will present a historical review of the CMB observations, one of the most powerful cosmological probes. Following the first talk of this series, where Jose Alberto described the basic parameters that define the standard cosmological model, I will here summarize the constraints to these parameters that have been derived from these observations. I will also describe the current challenges in this field, in particular the detection of the inflation's B-mode signal through CMB polarization observations, as well as the experiments that have been developed worldwide to this aim, including IAC's QUIJOTE. In the second part, I will focus on the so-called ``missing baryon problem'', i.e. the fact that the half of the expected baryon content of the local universe remains yet undetected. I will describe the theoretical studies that provide hints on where these baryons could be located, and the observational efforts that have been undertaken in this regard.