The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new cosmic microwave background experiment being built on Cerro Toco in Chile, due to begin observations in the early 2020s. We describe the scientific goals of the experiment, motivate the design, and forecast its performance. SO will measure the temperature and polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background in six frequency bands centered at: 27, 39, 93, 145, 225 and 280 GHz. The initial configuration of SO will have three small-aperture 0.5-m telescopes and one large-aperture 6-m telescope, with a total of 60,000 cryogenic bolometers. Our key science goals are to characterize the primordial perturbations, measure the number of relativistic species and the mass of neutrinos, test for deviations from a cosmological constant, improve our understanding of galaxy evolution, and constrain the duration of reionization. The small aperture telescopes will target the largest angular scales observable from Chile, mapping ≈ 10% of the sky to a white noise level of 2 µK-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, to measure the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, at a target level of σ(r) = 0.003. The large aperture telescope will map ≈ 40% of the sky at arcminute angular resolution to an expected white noise level of 6 µK-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, overlapping with the majority of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope sky region and partially with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. With up to an order of magnitude lower polarization noise than maps from the Planck satellite, the high-resolution sky maps will constrain cosmological parameters derived from the damping tail, gravitational lensing of the microwave background, the primordial bispectrum, and the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects, and will aid in delensing the large-angle polarization signal to measure the tensorto-scalar ratio. The survey will also provide a legacy catalog of 16,000 galaxy clusters and more than 20,000 extragalactic sources a .

We present a finely-binned tomographic weak lensing analysis of the Canada-FranceHawaii Telescope Lensing Survey, CFHTLenS, mitigating contamination to the signal from the presence of intrinsic galaxy alignments via the simultaneous fit of a cosmological model and an intrinsic alignment model. CFHTLenS spans 154 square degrees in five optical bands, with accurate shear and photometric redshifts for a galaxy sample with a median redshift of z m = 0.70. We estimate the 21 sets of cosmic shear correlation functions associated with six redshift bins, each spanning the angular range of 1.5 < θ < 35 arcmin. We combine this CFHTLenS data with auxiliary cosmological probes: the cosmic microwave background with data from WMAP7, baryon acoustic oscillations with data from BOSS, and a prior on the Hubble constant from the HST distance ladder. This leads to constraints on the normalisation of the matter power spectrum σ 8 = 0.799 ± 0.015 and the matter density parameter Ω m = 0.271 ± 0.010 for a flat ΛCDM cosmology. For a flat wCDM cosmology we constrain the dark energy equation of state parameter w = −1.02 ± 0.09. We also provide constraints for curved ΛCDM and wCDM cosmologies. We find the intrinsic alignment contamination to be galaxy-type dependent with a significant intrinsic alignment signal found for early-type galaxies, in contrast to the late-type galaxy sample for which the intrinsic alignment signal is found to be consistent with zero.

The Shear Testing Programme (STEP) is a collaborative project to improve the accuracy and reliability of all weak lensing measurements in preparation for the next generation of wide-field surveys. In this first STEP paper, we present the results of a blind analysis of simulated groundbased observations of relatively simple galaxy morphologies. The most successful methods are shown to achieve percent level accuracy. From the cosmic shear pipelines that have been used to constrain cosmology, we find weak lensing shear measured to an accuracy that is within the statistical errors of current weak lensing analyses, with shear measurements accurate to better than 7 per cent. The dominant source of measurement error is shown to arise from calibration uncertainties where the measured shear is over or underestimated by a constant multiplicative factor. This is of concern as calibration errors cannot be detected through standard diagnostic tests. The measured calibration errors appear to result from stellar contamination, false object detection, the shear measurement method itself, selection bias and/or the use of biased weights. Additive systematics (false detections of shear) resulting from residual point-spread function anisotropy are, in most cases, reduced to below an equivalent shear of 0.001, an order of magnitude below cosmic shear distortions on the scales probed by current surveys.Our results provide a snapshot view of the accuracy of current ground-based weak lensing methods and a benchmark upon which we can improve. To this end we provide descriptions of each method tested and include details of the eight different implementations of the commonly

The European Space Agency's Planck satellite, dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched 14 May 2009 and has been scanning the microwave and submillimetre sky continuously since 12 August 2009. In March 2013, ESA and the Planck Collaboration released the initial cosmology products based on the first 15.5 months of Planck data, along with a set of scientific and technical papers and a web-based explanatory supplement. This paper gives an overview of the mission and its performance, the processing, analysis, and characteristics of the data, the scientific results, and the science data products and papers in the release. The science products include maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and diffuse extragalactic foregrounds, a catalogue of compact Galactic and extragalactic sources, and a list of sources detected through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The likelihood code used to assess cosmological models against the Planck data and a lensing likelihood are described. Scientific results include robust support for the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model of cosmology and improved measurements of its parameters, including a highly significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum. The Planck values for these parameters and others derived from them are significantly different from those previously determined. Several large-scale anomalies in the temperature distribution of the CMB, first detected by WMAP, are confirmed with higher confidence. Planck sets new limits on the number and mass of neutrinos, and has measured gravitational lensing of CMB anisotropies at greater than 25σ. Planck finds no evidence for non-Gaussianity in the CMB. Planck's results agree well with results from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations. Planck finds a lower Hubble constant than found in some more local measures. Some tension is also present between the amplitude of matter fluctuations (σ 8 ) derived from CMB data and that derived from Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. The Planck and WMAP power spectra are offset from each other by an average level of about 2% around the first acoustic peak. Analysis of Planck polarization data is not yet mature, therefore polarization results are not released, although the robust detection of E-mode polarization around CMB hot and cold spots is shown graphically.

A sharp transport barrier, accompanied by a bifurcated poloidal rotation and a radial electric field, is formed at the plasma edge by driving a radial current across the outer magnetic surfaces of a tokamak. A decrease in particle transport is observed for negative radial E fields. When the radial current is turned off, the E field and the rotation damp on a time scale comparable with the ion-ion collision time.PACS numbers: 52.25.Fi, 52.55.Pi, 52.70.Ds An intensive effort is in progress, worldwide, to correlate the large and growing data base of experimental observations on plasma transport in magnetic fusion containment devices with theoretical models. In particular, the so-called "//^-mode" regimes in tokamaks have attracted strong interest due to their enhanced particle and energy confinement properties. ^""^ The transition of a plasma into the H mode is marked by a sudden decrease in the hydrogenic light emission from the plasma edge, followed by a prolonged increase in the plasma density. The reduction of hydrogen light (H^ or H^) indicates that the incoming neutral particle flux is reduced, presumably because of a decrease of the outgoing plasma flux, leading to a reduction in "recycling." The improvement in the energy confinement is generally less than the increase in particle confinement, ^-mode measurements also reveal the formation of sharp density and temperature gradients inside the last closed magnetic surfaces, which represents a transport barrier. Despite the magnitude of the effort aimed at modeling the H mode, no clear mechanism has been identified, although radial electric fields are thought to play a role."*'^ In this Letter, experimental observations confirming the importance of the radial E field and the associated plasma rotation for 7/-mode confinement are presented.In 1979, electron injection was used to modify the edge potentials in order to reduce ion sputtering in the Macrotor tokamak.^ Subsequently, improved particle confinement and a concomitant impurity accumulation were observed,^ apparently giving rise to an H mode. These effects were attributed to the creation of edge radial electric fields and associated negative plasma potentials much larger in magnitude than Tgia), where a is the plasma radius. Recently we have extended this earlier work using the new, titanium-gettered. Continuous Current Tokamak (CCT) at the University of California, Los Angeles. The recent experiments clearly show the //-mode signatures found in other tokamaks in various limiter, divertor, and auxiliary-heating configurations. The previously seen impurity limitations^ have also been eased by new electrode designs. ^ For the //-mode-regime studies, CCT was operated in the pulsed neo-Alcator regime, with central parameters R^l.5 m, a =0,4 m, Bt=3 kG, /p=50 kA, ne=5 xlO*Vcm^ Kioop<1.5 V, Te>l50 eV, and T/> 100 e = 180 INSULATOR ELECTRODE = 0" C/2 Q 1.5 1.8 MAJOR RADIUS (M) FIG. 1. (a) Cross section of tokamak, a ^40 cm, showing the location of the exciting electrode, re ^25 cm, and the "rake" probe arrays used...

We present a detailed overview of the cosmological surveys that we aim to carry out with Phase 1 of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1) and the science that they will enable. We highlight three main surveys: a medium-deep continuum weak lensing and low-redshift spectroscopic HI galaxy survey over 5 000 deg2; a wide and deep continuum galaxy and HI intensity mapping (IM) survey over 20 000 deg2 from $z = 0.35$ to 3; and a deep, high-redshift HI IM survey over 100 deg2 from $z = 3$ to 6. Taken together, these surveys will achieve an array of important scientific goals: measuring the equation of state of dark energy out to $z \sim 3$ with percent-level precision measurements of the cosmic expansion rate; constraining possible deviations from General Relativity on cosmological scales by measuring the growth rate of structure through multiple independent methods; mapping the structure of the Universe on the largest accessible scales, thus constraining fundamental properties such as isotropy, homogeneity, and non-Gaussianity; and measuring the HI density and bias out to $z = 6$ . These surveys will also provide highly complementary clustering and weak lensing measurements that have independent systematic uncertainties to those of optical and near-infrared (NIR) surveys like Euclid, LSST, and WFIRST leading to a multitude of synergies that can improve constraints significantly beyond what optical or radio surveys can achieve on their own. This document, the 2018 Red Book, provides reference technical specifications, cosmological parameter forecasts, and an overview of relevant systematic effects for the three key surveys and will be regularly updated by the Cosmology Science Working Group in the run up to start of operations and the Key Science Programme of SKA1.

We present an improved analysis of the final data set from the QUaD experiment. Using an improved technique to remove ground contamination, we double the effective sky area and hence increase the precision of our cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum measurements by ∼30% versus that previously reported. In addition, we have improved our modeling of the instrument beams and have reduced our absolute calibration uncertainty from 5% to 3.5% in temperature. The robustness of our results is confirmed through extensive jackknife tests, and by way of the agreement that we find between our two fully independent analysis pipelines. For the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model, the addition of QUaD data marginally improves the constraints on a number of cosmological parameters over those obtained from the WMAP experiment alone. The impact of QUaD data is significantly greater for a model extended to include either a running in the scalar spectral index, or a possible tensor component, or both. Adding both the QUaD data and the results from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver experiment, the uncertainty in the spectral index running is reduced by ∼25% compared to WMAP alone, while the upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is reduced from r < 0.48 to r < 0.33 (95% c.l.). This is the strongest limit on tensors to date from the CMB alone. We also use our polarization measurements to place constraints on parity-violating interactions to the surface of last scattering, constraining the energy scale of Lorentz violating interactions to < 1.5×10 −43 GeV (68% c.l.). Finally, we place a robust upper limit on the strength of the lensing B-mode signal. Assuming a single flat band power between = 200 and = 2000, we constrain the amplitude of B-modes to be < 0.57 μK 2 (95% c.l.).

We perform a cosmic shear analysis of the COMBO-17 survey -- a unique dataset with shear quality R-band imaging and accurate photometric redshift estimates (dz=0.05) for ~90% of galaxies to R=24.0. We undertake a full maximum likelihood analysis to measure the weak lensing power spectra, Cl^kk, Cl^bb & Cl^kb from l=400 to l=10^4. We find a strong measurement of the convergence power over five fields. The b-field has a much lower significance, indicating our data is free of major systematics, while the cross-correlation of k & b is consistent with zero. We have also calculated the shear correlation functions and variance over a range of scales between 0.5 and 20 arcmin. In addition, we have used our results to measure cosmological parameters, constraining the normalisation of the matter power spectrum to be sigma_8=(0.72 \pm 0.09)(Omega_m/0.3)^-0.49, where the errors quoted are 1-sigma due to the intrinsic dispersion in galaxy ellipticities, cosmic and sampling variance. We have significantly reduced the usual additional uncertainty in the median redshift (z_m) of the survey by estimating z_m directly from the data. To demonstrate the power of accurate redshift information, we have also measured parameters from a shear analysis of only those galaxies with accurate redshifts. In this case, we have eliminated the uncertainty in the redshift distribution of sources and we show that the uncertainty in the resulting parameter constraints are reduced by more than a factor of 2 compared to the typical uncertainties found in cosmic shear surveys to date. Finally, we combine our parameter measurements with constraints from the 2dFGRS and from the CMB. With these additional constraints, we measure sigma_8=0.73 +0.05/-0.03 and Omega_m=0.27 +/- 0.02.Comment: Matches version to appear in 1st May edition of MNRAS (vol. 341, pp.100-118