UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS

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2024-11-23 17:44
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2009 Meeting


Section: Atomic and Molecular Physics; Astrophysics


Title:
Romanian contribution to the recently launched Space Mission Planck


Authors:
Lucia Aurelia Popa


Affiliation:
Institute for Space Sciences - Bucharest


E-mail
lpopa@venus.nipne.ro


Keywords:
cosmology; Cosmic Microwave Background; Dark Matter; cosmological neutrinos; structure formation; intergalactic medium


Abstract:
Planck is a mission of the European Space Agency. It will measure, with unprecedented accuracy and level of detail the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) anisotropies which encode a wealth of information on the properties of the Universe in its infancy. It was launched on May 14th 2009, together with another satellite, Herschel, on the board of Ariane 5 missile, from the Kourou spacecraft in French Guiana. Planck`s scientific objectives: • Measuring the temperature anisotropies (∆T/T) of the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented sensitivity of the order 10-6 , at different angular resolutions and in a wide range of frequencies. These measurements will allow the determination of the fundamental cosmological parameters such as the curvature and the expansion rate of the Universe, the energy densities corresponding to baryons, Dark Matter or to massive neutrinos, and, consequently, the neutrino mass • Testing the inflationary models of the primordial Universe – more specific, determining the primordial density fluctuations and primordial gravitational waves spectra, which reveal the mechanisms initiating the formation of the cosmological structures observed today • Detecting some characteristics in the cosmic microwave background power spectrum, corresponding to different types of topological defects, for example cosmic strings, generated due to the phase transitions in the primordial Universe • Analyzing the thermal history of the Universe by studying the properties of the intergalactic medium and the primordial molecules formation process Romania, through the Cosmology Group at the institute of Space Sciences, Bucharest is a member of Planck collaboration since proposed to ESA in 1997. All this time we contributed to the development of the scientific program of this mission, especially through the study of the impact of these cosmological measurements on the Particle Physics. The complementarity between Planck’s measurements and the ones of other space missions is another important contribution of our group.