The Cosmic Microwave Background: The history of its experimental investigation and its significance for cosmology

Abstract

This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its fluctuations has confirmed the idea of inflation and led to the present era of precision cosmology. I discuss the evolution of cosmological perturbations and their imprint on the CMB as temperature fluctuations and polarization. I also show how a phase of inflationary expansion generates fluctuations in the spacetime curvature and primordial gravitational waves. In addition I present findings of CMB experiments, from the earliest to the most recent ones. The accuracy of these experiments has helped us to estimate the parameters of the cosmological model with unprecedented precision so that in the future we shall be able to test not only cosmological models but General Relativity itself on cosmological scales.

arXiv comment46 pages, 15 figures, review article for Special Issue "Milestones of General Relativity"

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• Milestones of general relativity: Hubble's law (1929) and the expansion of the universe
• Model-independent search for anisotropies in stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds and application to LIGO-Virgo's first three observing Runs
• Controlling systematics in ground-based CMB surveys with partial boresight rotation
• Dark matter and low scale leptogenesis in a flavor symmetric neutrino two Higgs doublet model($\nu$2HDM)
• Quasinormal Modes and Shadows of Black Holes in Infinite Derivative Theory of Gravity
• A relook at the GZK Neutrino-Photon Connection: Impact of Extra-galactic Radio Background & UHECR properties
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• Fast map-based simulations of systematics in CMB surveys including effects of the scanning strategy
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• Anisotropic cosmology in $q$-deformed entropic gravity
• Implications of correlations and fluctuations in small systems
• Cosmological Impacts of Black Hole Mergers: No Relief in Sight for the Hubble Tension