Polarization observations with the Cosmic Background Imager.

Polarization observations of the cosmic microwave background with the Cosmic Background Imager from September 2002 to May 2004 provide a significant detection of the E-mode polarization and reveal an angular power spectrum of polarized emission showing peaks and valleys that are shifted in phase by half a cycle relative to those of the total intensity spectrum. This key agreement between the phase of the observed polarization spectrum and that predicted on the basis of the total intensity spectrum provides support for the standard model of cosmology, in which dark matter and dark energy are the dominant constituents, the geometry is close to flat, and primordial density fluctuations are predominantly adiabatic with a matter power spectrum commensurate with inflationary cosmological models.

Cosmology from MAXIMA-1, BOOMERANG, and COBE DMR cosmic microwave background observations.

Recent results from BOOMERANG-98 and MAXIMA-1, taken together with COBE DMR, provide consistent and high signal-to-noise measurements of the cosmic microwave background power spectrum at spherical harmonic multipole bands over 2

Tree structure of a percolating Universe.

We present a numerical study of topological descriptors of initially Gaussian and scale-free density perturbations evolving via gravitational instability in an expanding Universe. The measured Euler number of the excursion set at the percolation threshold, delta(c), is positive and nearly equal to the number of isolated components, suggesting that these structures are trees. Our study of critical point counts reconciles the clumpy appearance of the density field at delta(c) with measured filamentary local curvature. In the Gaussian limit, we measure delta(c)>sigma, where sigma2 is the variance of the density field.