The quintessential CMB, past & future

The past, present and future of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy research is discussed, with emphasis on the Boomerang and Maxima balloon experiments. These data are combined with large scale structure (LSS) information derived from local cluster abundances and galaxy clustering and high redshift supernova (SN1) observations to explore the inflation-based cosmic structure formation paradigm. Here we primarily focus on a simplified inflation parameter set, {ωb,ωcdm,Ωtot,ΩQ,wQ,ns,τC,σ8}. After marginalizing over the other cosmic and experimental variables, we find the current CMB+LSS+SN1 data gives Ωtot=1.04±0.05, consistent with (non-baroque) inflation theory. Restricting to Ωtot=1, we find a nearly scale invariant spectrum, ns=1.03±0.07. The CDM density, ωcdm=0.17±0.02, is in the expected range, but the baryon density, ωb≡Ωbh2=0.030±0.004, is slightly larger than the current 0.019±0.002 Big Bang Nucleosynthesis estimate. Substantial dark (unclustered) energy is inferred, ΩQ≈0.68±0.05, and CMB+...