Cosmological Parameters from the Cosmic Microwave Background 

P. Lubin
Physics Dept.
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA  93106
USA
lubin@cfi.ucsb.edu


Upcoming  measurements of the Cosmic Microwave 
Background have the potential revolutionize our understanding of 
the early universe. The parameters that describe our universe are 
imprinted in the CMB in a way that should be accessible 
to the next generation of experiments. These parameters describe the 
overall density, baryon fraction, Hubble parameter, tensor and scalar 
components and primordial spectral index. Fundamental questions such 
as  "is the universe open or closed", "does inflation provide a 
viable paradigm for the very early moments", "did gravitational waves 
plane an important role", "were  cosmic strings or textures important 
in the evolution" etc. will be addressed by these new data sets. 
Recent experimental progress in near photon limited detectors 
combined with preliminary measurements of the power spectrum of 
angular fluctuations and new theoretical insight into how to extract 
the model parameters gives us confidence that we are on the verge of 
a revolution in our understanding of the early universe. Combined 
with other data sets from optical large scale structure surveys and 
other approaches to measuring these parameters will give us a 
critical increase in our knowledge. The current status of the 
measurements, planned missions and issues of foregrounds, systematic 
errors and possible limitations as well as parameter extraction 
precision will be discussed.