Year: 1998
Type: preprint
Abstract: We discuss the problem of constraining cosmological parameters with cosmic microwave background band--power estimates. Because these latter are variances, they do not have gaussian distribution functions and, hence, the standard $χ^2$--approach is not strictly applicable. A general purpose approximation to experimental band--power likelihood functions is proposed, which requires only limited experimental details. Comparison with the full likelihood function calculated for several experiments shows that the approximation works well.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institution: Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1826427701