Symmetry of Cosmological Observables, a Mirror World Dark Sector, and the Hubble Constant.

We find that a uniform scaling of the gravitational free-fall rates and photon-electron scattering rate leaves most dimensionless cosmological observables nearly invariant. This result opens up a new approach to reconciling cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure observations with high values of the Hubble constant H_{0}: Find a cosmological model in which the scaling transformation can be realized without violating any measurements of quantities not protected by the symmetry. A "mirror world" dark sector allows for effective scaling of the gravitational free-fall rates while respecting the measured mean photon density today. Further model building might bring consistency with the two constraints not yet satisfied: the inferred primordial abundances of deuterium and helium.

First Detection of the Acoustic Oscillation Phase Shift Expected from the Cosmic Neutrino Background.

The unimpeded relativistic propagation of cosmological neutrinos prior to recombination of the baryon-photon plasma alters gravitational potentials and therefore the details of the time-dependent gravitational driving of acoustic oscillations. We report here a first detection of the resulting shifts in the temporal phase of the oscillations, which we infer from their signature in the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum.

Determining neutrino mass from the cosmic microwave background alone.

Distortions of cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization maps caused by gravitational lensing, observable with high angular resolution and high sensitivity, can be used to measure the neutrino mass. Assuming two massless species and one with mass m(nu), we forecast sigma(m(nu))=0.15 eV from the Planck satellite and sigma(m(nu))=0.04 eV from observations with twice the angular resolution and approximately 20 times the sensitivity. A detection is likely at this higher sensitivity since the observation of atmospheric neutrino oscillations requires Deltam(2)(nu) greater, similar (0.04 eV)(2).

Limit on the detectability of the energy scale of inflation.

We show that the polarization of the cosmic microwave background can be used to detect gravity waves from inflation if the energy scale of inflation is above 2x10(15) GeV. These gravity waves generate polarization patterns with a curl, whereas (to first order in perturbation theory) density perturbations do not. The limiting "noise" arises from the second-order generation of curl from density perturbations, or rather residuals from its subtraction. We calculate optimal sky coverage and detectability limits as a function of detector sensitivity and observing time.