CMB ANISOTROPIES, COSMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS AND FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS: CURRENT STATUS & PERSPECTIVES
Résumé
I describe briefly the Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter CMB) physics which explains why high accuracy observations of its spatial structure are aunique observational tool both for the determination of the global cosmological parameters and to constrain observationally the physics of theearly universe. I also briefly survey the many experiments which have measuredthe anisotropies of the CMB and led to crucial advances in observationalCosmology. The somewhat frantic series of new results has recently culminatedwith the outcome of the WMAP satellite which confirmed earlier results, setnew standards of accuracy, and suggested that the Universe may have reionisedearlier than anticipated. Many more CMB experiments are currently taking data or being planned, with the Planck satellite on the 2007 Horizon poised to extract all the cosmological information in the temperature anisotropies, andforay deeply into polarisation.