New measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background

Conference · Fri Jun 01 04:00:00 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
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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