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Abstract
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the afterglow of the Big Bang — has transformed our understanding of the Universe. Tiny temperature fluctuations in the CMB have provided a gold mine of information about the early Universe.
Observations of the CMB have led to very strong evidence that the Universe experienced an inflationary period of rapid expansion at early times, and that at late times it is dominated by dark matter and dark energy. These features have led to the emergence of the ΛCDM model as the standard model of cosmology, with parameters exquisitely defined by the Planck satellite and ground-based experiments. Yet the component parts of the ΛCDM model are still not understood at a fundamental level.
In the first part of this lecture, Professor Efstathiou will review the prospects of learning about inflation, dark matter and dark energy over the next few years, with particular emphasis on recent claims that dark energy may be evolving. In the second part, Professor Bond will focus on the transport of photons, neutrinos, and gravitational waves from the early Universe to now and results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), complementing Professor Efstathiou’s emphasis on Planck and ΛCDM.
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