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Published Online October 7, 2004
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1105598

Research Articles

Submitted on ,
Accepted on October 4, 2004

Polarization Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager

A. C. S. Readhead 1*, S. T. Myers 2, T. J. Pearson 1, J. L. Sievers 3, B. S. Mason 4, C. R. Contaldi 5, J. R. Bond 5, R. Bustos 6, P. Altamirano 7, C. Achermann 7, L. Bronfman 7, J. E. Carlstrom 8, J. K. Cartwright 9, S. Casassus 7, C. Dickinson 1, W. L. Holzapfel 10, J. M. Kovac 9, E. M. Leitch 8, J. May 7, S. Padin 9, D. Pogosyan 11, M. Pospieszalski 12, C. Pryke 8, R. Reeves 6, M. C. Shepherd 1, S. Torres 6

1 Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
2 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box O, Socorro, NM 87801, USA.
3 Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
4 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 2, Green Bank, WV 24944, USA.
5 Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
6 Departamento de Ingenierí a Eléctrica, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
7 Departamento de Astronomí a, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
8 Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
9 Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
10 Department of Physics, 361 LeConte Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300, USA.
11 Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
12 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
A. C. S. Readhead , E-mail: acr{at}astro.caltech.edu

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 based on the total intensity spectrum provides new 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.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)