IAU02765
Presentation type requested: ORAL
EARLY UNIVERSE PHYSICS
David Spergel
Princeton University
Observations of microwave background fluctuations, large scale structure and the Lyman alpha forest are direct probes of the physics of the very early universe. The current data is consistent with the predictions of the simplest inflationary models: a nearly scale invariant spectrum of adiabiatic Gaussian fluctuations seems to have seeded the formation of large scale structure. While the data is consistent with the basic inflationary paradigm, it already has ruled out certain versions of inflation (e.g., the popular lambda phi4 model). As the data improves, it will be able to distinguish between inflationary models.
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