Characterizing the peak in the cosmic microwave background angular power spectrum
A peak has been unambiguously detected in the cosmic microwave background angular spectrum. Here we characterize its properties with fits to phenomenological models. We find that the TOCO and BOOM/NA data determine the peak location to be in the range 175-243 and 151-259, respectively (at 95% confidence) and determine the peak amplitude to be between approximately 70 and 90 &mgr;K. The peak shape is consistent with inflation-inspired flat, cold dark matter plus cosmological constant models of structure formation with adiabatic, nearly scale invariant initial conditions. It is inconsistent with open models and presents a great challenge to defect models.
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Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
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