Experimental values of Qflat

The figure (and this accompanying table) displays the current status of CMB anisotropy observations. This is a representation of the results from COBE, together with a wide range of ground- and balloon-based experiments which have operated in the last few years. Plotted are the quadrupole amplitudes for a flat (unprocessed scale-invariant spectrum of primordial perturbations, ie, a horizontal line) anisotropy spectrum that would give the observed results for each experiment. In other words each point is the normalization of a flat spectrum derived from individual experiments. The dotted line shows the best fit horizontal line for the COBE data alone.

The vertical error bars represent estimates of 68% CL, while the upper limits are at 95% CL. Horizontal bars indicate the range of $\ell$ values sampled. To be explicit, specific choices have to be made in order to present all the data in this way; here the values of Qflat have all been symmetrised, and the points are plotted at the window function maxima.

The curve indicates the expected spectrum for a standard CDM model (Omega_0 = 1, Omega_B =0.05, h =0.5), although true comparison with models should involve convolution of this curve with each experimental filter function. References for this figure can be found here.


   l0   l1   l2  Q    dQ -dlogl +dlogl Label  Notes
   3.16  2    5 18.5  3.1 0.199  0.199  COBE  4-yr (Hinshaw et al. 1994)
   7.75  6   10 16.2  2.1 0.111  0.111  COBE
  14.83 11   20 20.0  2.1 0.130  0.130  COBE
  29.0  21   40 0.5  25   0.140  0.140  COBE
    9    3   29 19    5   0.491  0.494  FIRS  (Ganga et al. 1993)
   20   13   30 21.5  6   0.187  0.176  Ten.  (Gutierrez et al. 1997)
   50   21   99 14.8 2.7  0.377  0.297  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
   74   35  130 16.8 5.2  0.325  0.245  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  108   67  157 20.0 5.6  0.207  0.162  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  140   99  185 17.4 8.0  0.150  0.121  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  172  132  215 34.9 7.8  0.115  0.097  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  203  164  244 63.2 12.0 0.093  0.080  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  233  195  273 46.5 46.5 0.077  0.069  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
  264  227  303 0.5  59.4 0.066  0.060  PyV   (Python V - Coble et al. 1999)
   58   28   97 31    9   0.316  0.223  BAM   (Q_flat fit)
   66   32  109 13    9   0.314  0.218  SP91  (Schuster et al. 1993)
   68   32  109 25.9  6   0.314  0.218  SP94  (Gundersen et al. 1994)
   80   59  100 30.0 5.5  0.132  0.097  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)
  126   99  153 37.8 6.2  0.105  0.084  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)
  111   79  143 33.6 4.9  0.148  0.110  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)
   87   49  105 39.2  9.2 0.249  0.082  Pyth. (95 Platt et al. 1997)
  170  120  239 43.2 10.5 0.151  0.148  Pyth. (high l)
  107   53  180 25.2  5.5 0.305  0.226  ARGO  (Hercules, deBern. etal 95)
  109   53  180 26.9  4.6 0.305  0.226  ARGO  (Aries & Taurus, Masi etal 96)
  125   60  205 61   27   0.319  0.215  IAB   (Piccirillio & Calisse 93)
   84   39  130 23.9 8.5  0.333  0.190  MSAM  (MSAM 1 - Wilson et al. 1999)
  201  131  283 32.3 6.0  0.186  0.148  MSAM  (MSAM 1)
  407  284  453 30.7 4.5  0.156  0.046  MSAM  (MSAM 1)
  158   78  263 31.9  5.0 0.307  0.221  MAX   (combined - Tanaka priv. comm.)
   90   52  131 32.6  6.2 0.238  0.163  Sask. (95, Netterfield et al.)
  152  118  205 44.9  7.6 0.110  0.130  Sask.
  232  189  274 55.5  9.7 0.089  0.072  Sask.
  273  243  319 56.2 10.6 0.051  0.068  Sask.
  338  304  401 41.6 16.2 0.046  0.074  Sask.
  422  339  483 31.2  4.0 0.291  0.173  CAT   (low-l, Scott et al. 1996)
  615  546  722 30.1  6.4 0.180  0.127  CAT   (high-l, Scott etal, Baker 1997)
  539  297  825 0.5  97   0.259  0.185  WD    (White Dish, Tucker 94, Ratra 98)
  589  361  756 36.5 4.8  0.213  0.108  Ring  (OVRO, Leitch et al. 1998)
 1750 1100 2750 1.0  29   0.202  0.196  OVRO  (Readhead et al. 1989)
 2400 1330 3670 0.5  28   0.256  0.184  SuZIE (Church/Ganga et al. 1997)
 4520 3500 5780 1.0  23.6 0.111  0.107  ATCA  (Subrahmanyan et al. 1993, 1997)
 6300 4300 8300 0.5  20   0.166  0.120  RT    (Ryle, Jones, PPEUC 1997)
 7500 5500 9500 1.0  53   0.100  0.100  VLA   (Partridge et al. 1997)
13081  0    0   0.5  152  0.200  0.200  SCUBA (Scuba - UBC)
  80   59   100 30.0 5.5  0.132  0.097  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)
 126   99   153 37.8 6.2  0.105  0.084  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)
 111   79   143 33.6 4.9  0.148  0.110  QMAP  (de Oliveira-Costa etal 1998)