Abstract: |
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has been providing us with a wealth
of information for cosmology. Can we learn more from the CMB apart from
its primary anisotropies? I shall present the next frontiers of CMB
research: the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, Weak Lensing of the CMB
(WL of CMB) and Kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect. In order to
understand the gravitational potential (and thus cosmological parameters
such as dark energy and curvature) of the Universe, we study the ISW
effect and weak lensing of the CMB using the following datasets: WMAP,
2MASS, SDSS LRGs and Quasars, and NVSS. We perform a joint analysis of all
samples, allowing a reliable covariance matrix to be constructed -
including all the cross-correlations of different samples, which is
necessary for joint cosmological parameter fitting. I present results from
the first likelihood analysis of ISW and WL of CMB, that allows all
cosmological parameters to vary. This also places cosmological constraints
on parameters of the Universe such as curvature and dark energy equation
of state. I will also discuss the prospects of using the kSZ effect as the
first tool for systematically mapping the baryon density of the Universe.
More specifically, I will present predictions for various on-going and
upcoming surveys such as ADEPT with ACT/SPT/APEX and SDSS with PLANCK.
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