Microwave cosmology and Extra Dimensions
February 5th, 2007
I saw this a few months ago and was intrigued by it. Its just a proof of concept but an interesting one. The idea is to look at the cosmic microwave background in detail and see if one can make any educated guesses about the compact dimensions from there.
The WMAP has measured the anisotropy of the microwave background with some accuracy (about .0002 degree Kelvins) There was some quadruple and octopole moment found. Not sure one is ready to allocate these anisotropy to extra dimensions (they can easily be coming from extragalctic foregrounds.)
Kate Land and Joao Maqueijo called the axis of anisotropy as the “Axis of Evil”! Thats really funny.
The microwave results have to be much more accurate and our understanding of the sources of the microwave background much more refined before it can tell us anything more about the compact dimensions, but its a worthwhile pursuit.
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