Paper detail

The Cosmic Background Radiation, Snowmass Workshop

Observations of the Cosmic Microwave background have provided many of the most powerful constraints we have on cosmology and events in the early universe. The spectrum and isotropy of CBR have long been a pillar of Big Bang models. The discovery of low levels on anisotropy has provided new information and tools for our understanding of the early universe. Further observations promise to enhance greatly our knowledge of processes in the early universe and cosmological parameters. We can anticipate rapid advance in this field up to and through the year 2000 which will dramatically focus our efforts in cosmology during the next millenium. This paper outlines the primary science likely to be discovered and defined by a vigorous airborne and ground-based program which should be strongly supported. If successfully excuted, we an anticipate a measurement of the CBR anisotropy spectrum to within a factor of two of the confidence level unavoidably set by cosmic variance. Even so, observations of the CBR are the best and often the only way to obtain information on many critical parameters so that an ambitious satellite experiment that maps the full-sky to the delta T/T ~ 10^{-6} level is well justified. Draft CBR description and recommendations from the Snowmass Workshop comments to smoot@cosmos.lbl.gov