Constraining fundamental physics with future CMB experiments

Abstract

The Planck experiment will soon provide a very accurate measurement of cosmic microwave background anisotropies. This will let cosmologists determine most of the cosmological parameters with unprecedented accuracy. Future experiments will improve and complement the Planck data with better angular resolution and better polarization sensitivity. This unexplored region of the CMB power spectrum contains information on many parameters of interest, including neutrino mass, the number of relativistic particles at recombination, the primordial helium abundance, and the injection of additional ionizing photons by dark matter self-annihilation. We review the imprint of each parameter on the CMB and forecast the constraints achievable by future experiments by performing a Monte Carlo analysis on synthetic realizations of simulated data. We find that next generation satellite missions such as CMBPol could provide valuable constraints with a precision close to that expected in current and near future laboratory experiments. Finally, we discuss the implications of this intersection between cosmology and fundamental physics. © 2010 The American Physical Society.