New measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background

Conference · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1984

OSTI ID:6592449

Peterson, J B; Richards, P L; Bonomo, J L; Timusk, T

Accurate measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can provide useful tests of cosmological theories. The data set existing in 1982 has been summarized on a number of occasions and is shown. To first approximation the CMB is characterized by a single temperature and thus has a blackbody spectrum over the frequency range from 0.02 to 24 cm/sup -1/. The error limits given for these experiments are dominated by systematic errors and are often very subjective. Consequently, it is not clear how to analyze the data set in a valid way. The general impression, however, is of a scatter in the high frequency data that is somewhat larger than would be expected from the given error limits. We have designed a new apparatus to measure the spectrum of the CMB in the frequency range from 3 to 10 cm/sup -1/. 13 references, 5 figures.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA); McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ontario (Canada). Dept. of Physics
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 6592449
• Report Number(s): LBL-18073; CONF-8405155-3; ON: DE84016055
• Resource Relation: Conference: Inner space/outer space conference, Batavia, IL, USA, 2 May 1984
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMIC RADIATION
BACKGROUND RADIATION
MICROWAVE RADIATION
BLACKBODY RADIATION
ENERGY SPECTRA
ERRORS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
MEASURING METHODS
DATA
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
INFORMATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
NUMERICAL DATA
RADIATIONS
SPECTRA
640101* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Cosmic Radiation
640106 - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Cosmology