Paolo Natoli (Ferrara):

Cosmology with Planck

Abstract:

The European Space Agency’s Planck satellite was launched on 14 May 2009, and has been surveying the sky stably and continuously with the two onboard instruments since 13 August 2009 until 14 January 2012. On this date, the High Frequency Instrument has reached the expected end of its cryogenic lifetime. The Low Frequency Instrument continues to gather data steadily, and is expected to do so for several months to come. The global performance of Planck is well in line with expectations.

I will give an overview of the history of Planck’s first years of operations, describing the overall philosophy, motivations and key performance issues of the mission. Results from Planck have been released in January 2011 ("early results") and February 2012 ("intermediate results"). The content of these releases is devoted to Galactic and extragalactic science. I will present highlights from the latter results and discuss Planck's much awaited cosmological expectations: Planck will probe the conditions of the early Universe at energy scales inconceivable for terrestrial experiments. Primordial gravitational waves, the inflationary phase and fundamental physics beyond the standard model, are all targets on Planck's schedule.

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