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The polarization analyses of Lyman Page et al. see no evidence of B-modes but tell you a lot of details. Note that the B-modes describe the magnetic field of electromagnetic waves. If you choose the synchronous gauge, the B-modes of the radiation are sourcing the tensor "h_{ij}" modes of the gravitational field only. In other words, the absence of the B-modes means an absence of short gravity waves.
See also WMAP 5-year results.This observation seems to rule out the original ekpyrotic models of the Universe because these models predict that the energy stored in gravity waves grows faster with the momentum than inflation predicts while the upper bound on the tensor/scalar ratio from the WMAP data is 0.55. The cyclic Universe models based on the original ekpyrotic scenario may be ruled out, too. Note that newer cyclic models are claimed to generate a scale-invariant spectrum indistinguishable from inflation.
David Spergel explains, together with his team, that a standard six-parameter cosmological model containing cold dark matter plus cosmological constant plus baryonic matter fits not only the new three-year data but also finer CMB details: patches that are smaller than in the previous data have been looked at and the case for inflation has strengthened because the spectrum continues to be scale-invariant up to these shorter length scales. Try this 2048 x 1124 map in the W-band (more than one megabyte!) and compare with the analogous, older pictures from COBE and WMAP-1-year. One can see solid angles that are 1,000 times smaller than those at COBE and almost 100 times smaller than with the first-year WMAP maps. Instead of listening to Peter Woit, have a look! ;-)
The equation of state of the dark energy has "w=p/rho" equal to -1.07 plus minus 0.1 or so. The sum of neutrino masses is below 0.68 eV at 95% confidence level. No non-gaussianities have been seen. The index "n" is close to one (scale invariance) but very likely different from one, something like 0.96.
A 142-page-long description of the whole experiment is here. Some update on temperatures is here - they hijacked the acronym ILC! A discussion of data analysis and error margins is here.
Figure 1: An image of the skies. (WMAP/NASA science team.)
More hot new images can be found on a NASA website. EurekAlert offers a press release. Because the temperature fluctuations still perfectly agree with the inflationary framework, there is a lot of room for poetic comments. Brian Greene revived a theme from his book "The Fabric of the Cosmos" at the press conference:
- These observations are spectacular and the results are stunning… it is truly inspiring. Galaxies are nothing but quantum mechanics writ large across the sky.
More news on news.google.com. Mark Trodden says just a few words. Sean Carroll, on the other hand, tells you much more how the LambdaCDM model is in good shape.
