Seminarium Fizyki Wielkich Energii

The Planck space mission will soon deliver its final data products and the results of the analysis of its observations of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies. While a simple 6-parameter cosmological model seems to fit remarkably well the observed CMB angular power spectrum, many open questions still remain, which can be addressed with even more sensitive CMB observations: What is the nature and interaction properties of the dark matter? What is the equation of state of dark energy? What is the role of the neutrinos on the cosmic history?What is the mass and the hierarchy of the three neutrino species? Are there any extra relativistic degrees of freedom beyond those of the standard model? What physics governs the mechanism of cosmic inflation that is supposed to be at the origin of the primordial fluctuations? Are there primordial gravity waves and have they been detected by the BICEP2 experiment?

I will discuss the present status of our understanding of these questions, and the scientific case and possible design of a next-generation CMB satellite, COrE+, to be proposed to ESA as a future medium-scale European space mission.