Sonifying the Cosmic Microwave Background

McGee, Ryan; Van der Veen, Jatila; Wright, Matthew; Kuchera-Morin, JoAnn; Alper, Basak; Lubin, Philip

Title:

Sonifying the Cosmic Microwave Background

dc.contributor.author	McGee, Ryan
dc.contributor.author	Van der Veen, Jatila
dc.contributor.author	Wright, Matthew
dc.contributor.author	Kuchera-Morin, JoAnn
dc.contributor.author	Alper, Basak
dc.contributor.author	Lubin, Philip
dc.contributor.corporatename	International Community for Auditory Display
dc.contributor.corporatename	University of California, Santa Barbara. Media Arts and Technology. Department of Physics
dc.date.accessioned	2014-05-21T16:39:26Z
dc.date.available	2014-05-21T16:39:26Z
dc.date.issued	2011-06
dc.description	Presented at the 17th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2011), 20-23 June, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary.	en_US
dc.description	Presented at the 17th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2011), 20-23 June, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary.
dc.description.abstract	We present a new technique to sonify the power spectrum of the map of temperature anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest observable light of the universe. According to the Standard Cosmological Model, the universe be- gan in a hot, dense state, and the first 380,000 years of its ex- istence were dominated by a tightly coupled plasma of baryons and photons, which was permeated by gravity-driven pressure os- cillations - sound waves. The imprint of these primordial sound waves remains as light echoes in the CMB, which we measure as small-amplitude red and blue shifts in the black body radiation of the universe, with a typical angular scale of one degree. With our software, users can observe how the temperature map and power spectrum of the CMB change in response to different compositions of baryonic matter, dark matter, and dark energy, and explore these different universes in ‘sound space.’ Our simulation is designed to enhance understanding of how we can infer properties of the uni- verse from the power spectrum of CMB temperature anisotropies. We discuss the theory, the software, and potential applications in education.	en_US
dc.embargo.terms	null	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2011), Budapest, Hungary. 20-23 June, 2011. International Community for Auditory Display, 2011.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/51765
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.publisher.original	International Community for Auditory Display	en_US
dc.publisher.original	International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD)
dc.relation.ispartofseries	International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD)
dc.subject	Auditory display	en_US
dc.subject	Sonification	en_US
dc.subject	Microwave	en_US
dc.title	Sonifying the Cosmic Microwave Background	en_US
dc.type	Text
dc.type.genre	Proceedings
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	Sonification Lab
local.relation.ispartofseries	International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD)
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	2727c3e6-abb7-4df0-877f-9f218987b22a
relation.isSeriesOfPublication	6cb90d00-3311-4767-954d-415c9341a358