paper

On Precision Measurement of the Mean Curvature

arXiv:astro-ph/0503405 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.73.023503

Abstract

Very small mean curvature is a robust prediction of inflation worth rigorous checking. Since current constraints are derived from determinations of the angular-diameter distance to the CMB last-scattering surface, which is also affected by dark energy, they are limited by our understanding of the dark energy. Measurements of luminosity or angular-diameter distances to redshifts in the matter-dominated era can greatly reduce this uncertainty. With a one percent measurement of the distance to z=3, combined with the CMB data expected from Planck, one can achieve sigma(Ω_k h^2) \sim 10^{-3}. A non-zero detection at this level would be evidence against inflation or for unusually large curvature fluctuations on super-Hubble scales.

7 pages accepted for publication in PRD. Final published version with more on how the curvature constraints depend on the technique used for measuring distance

References in corpus (7)

Cited by in corpus (49)