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Content archived on 2024-06-16

Exploring the universe with cosmic microwave background non-Gaussianity

Objective

According to most present theories, the universe originated 12-15 billion years ago in the Big Bang. About 300 000 years after, the universe became transparent in the so-called recombination era. Before that time, a dense mixture of ionised gas and radiation was present in every part of the universe but because of the free electrons, the radiation was continuously scattered.

In the recombination era, electrons and protons combined to form the first atoms, and the radiation could freely stream. This radiation has survived to the present time and is called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). As the CMB radiation originated in a very early epoch of the history of the cosmos, observing it can provide invaluable information about the physical processes, which took place during the birth of the universe.

This project aims at developing statistical and mathematical methods to exploit the information about the early universe present in observations of the CMB. To achieve this, small deviations from a Gaussian distribution of temperature fluctuations in the CMB radiation will be exploited. In particular, the project aims at developing these data analyses methods for the European Planck satellite experiment, which is scheduled for launch in 2007.

Its high sensitivity to the CMB could bring about a revolution in the field of high-energy physics and cosmology. The field of CMB research has been dominated historically by American experiments, and European researchers have had the possibility to analyse the data only after it has been released.

Now that a European experiment is being prepared, it is crucial to keep scientists in Europe so that a critical mass can be reached, enabling full exploitation of the huge amount of cosmological data, which is expected to arrive after the launch of the Planck satellite.

This will be of utmost importance for increasing the European competitiveness in the field of cosmology and high-energy physics.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP6-2002-MOBILITY-11
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERG - Marie Curie actions-European Re-integration Grants

Coordinator

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
EU contribution
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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