Dr. Benjamin Wandelt
UIUC

University of Florida Astronomy Colloquium - Feb. 27, 2008

How did the Universe begin?

After a century of advances in physical theory and in observational technology, cosmologists now find themselves in a position of probing the physics of the Beginning. "What banged at the Big Bang?" In addition to distinguishing between different versions of inflation we can even hope to distinguish inflation from the entirely different class of ekpyrotic or cyclic models. I will discuss our recent results showing that CMB data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe disfavors the entire class of the simplest inflationary models: slow-roll, single field inflation. In closing I will look ahead to future astronomical probes of fundamental physics and what currently appear to be the ultimate limits to what we can learn about the Beginning from astronomical data.