Colloquium in Theoretical Physics
Can One Hear the Shape of the Universe?
Professor Frank Steiner
Universität Ulm
Friday, 14th January 2005, 13.30
Lecture hall (Sal) F, Sölvegatan 14
The temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation
(CMB) will be discussed, in particular, "the mystery of the missing
fluctuations" at large scales, first observed by COBE and nicely
confirmed by the first-year data of NASA's explorer mission "Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe" (WMAP). We show that these data hint that our
Universe might possess a non-trivial spatial topology. Two nearly flat
models are discussed: the Picard space which is stretched out into an
infinitely long horn, but with finite volume, and the Poincaré
dodecahedron. Both models predict the observed suppression of power at
large scales. As a signature of cosmic topology, one should find pairs
of matching circles in the CMB sky maps.
References:
R. Aurich, S. Lustig, F. Steiner and H. Then
Hyperbolic Universes with a Horned Topology and the CMB Anisotropy
Class. Quant. Grav. 21 (2004) 4901-4925,
astro-ph/0403597
R. Aurich, S. Lustig, F. Steiner and H. Then
Can one hear the shape of the Universe?
to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett,
astro-ph/0412407
R. Aurich, S. Lustig and F. Steiner
CMB Anisotropy of the Poincaré Dodecahedron
astro-ph/0412569
The Colloquia in Theoretical Physics are aimed for a general audience of
students, teachers and researchers interested in physics and the laws of
Nature. Coffee will be served after the Colloquium.
Everybody is welcome!
Gösta Gustafson -- Theoretical physics
Sven Åberg -- Mathematical physics
Last modified: Dec 22 2004
Stefan Keppeler
(stefan.keppeler@matfys.lth.se)