High Resolution Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background with ACBAR

William Holzapfel (UCB Physics)

Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation provide a window to the Universe as it existed 400,000 years after the Big Bang. This snapshot of the early Universe encodes a wealth of information about the constituents of the Universe and perhaps the mechanism of inflation. High resolution observations of the CMB are an important compliment to the results of experiments with coarser resolution such as WMAP. The Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR) is a 16 element 230mK bolometer array designed to observe the CMB with 5' resolution. ACBAR has recently completed its 4th and final season of observations at the South Pole. During this time it has produced maps of the CMB with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. I will discuss the results of the full 2-year data set (to be released soon) and extrapolate to what we can expect from the 4-year data set.