Cosmology



Cosmology researchers study the nature and evolution of the early
universe. This is done by observing the Cosmic Background Microwave
spectrum, investigating methods for gravitational lensing, and
developing new types of instruments to study matter up to 15 billion
light years away.








Cosmology researchers at JPL is developing the advanced
technologies such as new detector technology new instruments and new
concepts for future astrophysical space missions. These facilities
would provide new capabilities to conduct sensitive astronomical
observations and gather a broad range of information in all areas
including photometry, polarization and spectroscopy. The Cosmology
group also develops analysis tools to study the rich and diverse set of
astrophysical data obtained with a number of ground-based and space
telescopes, from the South Pole, Antarctica, to the Atacama Desert
mountain tops in Chile and to Mauna Kea in Hawaii, as well as to the
NASA space observatories, including Hubble and Spitzer.

A brief history of the universe. A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.7 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 380,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe. (Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team)

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The new Transition Edge Sensor (TES) antenna coupled array, designed for 150 GHz. The large format array consists of 512 pixels, each is readout by a SQUID multiplex.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

There is mounting evidence that the observable universe had undergone
a superluminal “inflation” of a sub-nuclear volume. Within the last
decade, works by Boomerang,
Degree Angular Scale
Interferometer (DASI), the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and other experiments have shown
that the universe is indeed highly isotropic and nearly geometrically
flat, two of the features predicted by the Theory of Inflation. The
BOOMERanG B98 instrument is a balloon-borne telescope designed and
optimized to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature
anisotropies by taking advantage of high sensitivity detectors and long
duration balloon flight from Antarctica. If Inflation is related to
grand unification as many theorists believe, the physical process would
be well beyond the reach of modern terrestrial accelerators.
Fortunately, the CMB provides a powerful test of Inflation, in the form
of a polarization signal produced by a background of gravitational waves
left over from Inflation. This signal has unique pattern and should be
at the level detectable with the next generation of instruments.

The group also is leading the effort in fabricating cryogenic
detectors, both coherent and incoherent, for mm/submm applications. The
devices are used by numerous experiments around the world, such as the
Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP)
experiment at the South Pole, Antarctica.

Rsearchers are leading the effort to fabricate cryogenic detectors, are deployed in experiments, such as the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) experiment at the South Pole.

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Hubble Space Telescope image shows Einstein ring of one of the SLACS gravitational lenses, with the lensed background galaxy