The cosmic microwave background (CMB)

The CMB team at IJCLab is involved in cosmological studies and in particular the physics of the early Universe as well as the large scale structure formation using measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

Since the late 90s, IJCLab actively participated to the balloon-borne experiment ARCHEOPS and the following ESA space mission Planck. The team further joined the effort on the R&D study of bolometric interferometry for CMB polarisation measurement QUBIC. The team activity is now centered on the forthcoming ground-based experiment Simons-Observatory and the preparation to the Japanese space mission LiteBIRD.

The CMB group brings together a wide expertise in analysis and interpretation of CMB polarized data, with a world recognized expertise on angular power spectra estimators, likelihood functions and phenomenological studies related to inflation, the neutrino sector and the impact of gravitational lensing. The team is thus at the leading edge of the data analysis both at large angular scales (with Planck or LiteBIRD) as well as on small scales (with ground-based Simons-Observatory and preparation to CMB-S4).

Carte de la polarisation du Fond Diffus Cosmologique
(Credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration)