Preliminary results and perspectives in the Archeops experiment

Original · EN

Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature fluctuations are a powerful tool for testing theories of the early Universe and for measuring cosmological parameters. We present basics of CMB physics, review some of the most recent results and discuss their implications for cosmology. The Archeops balloon-borne experiment is designed to map the CMB with an angular resolution of 10 arcminutes and a precision of 30 μK per pixel. This will allow the measurement of the CMB fluctuation power spectrum from large to small angular scales. We describe preliminary results from the test flight which took place in July 1999 and present perspectives for upcoming scientific flights (January 2001).