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SCI-BYTES - WHAT'S NEW IN RESEARCH : 2008

Week of September 28, 2008 < Back ¦ 2008 ¦ Home

 
Hot Paper in Physics

"Three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations: Implications for cosmology," by D.N. Spergel and 21 others, Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 170(2): 377-408, June 2007.

From the Abstract: "A simple cosmological model with only six parameters (matter density, Omega(m)h(2), baryon density, Omega(b)h(2), Hubble constant, H-0, amplitude of fluctuations, sigma(8), optical depth, tau, and a slope for the scalar perturbation spectrum, n(s)) fits not only the 3 year WMAP temperature and polarization data, but also small-scale CMB data, light element abundances, large-scale structure observations, and the supernova luminosity/distance relationship. Using WMAP data only, the best-fit values for cosmological parameters for the power-law flat Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) model are (Omega(m)h(2), Omega(b)h(2), h, n(s), tau, sigma(s)) = (0.1277(-0.0079)(+0.0080),
0.02229 +/- 0.00073, 0.732(-0.032)(+0.031), 0.958 +/- 0.016,0.089 +/- 0.030, 0.761(-0.048)(+0.049)). The 3 year data dramatically shrink the allowed volume in this six-dimensional parameter space. Assuming that the primordial fluctuations are adiabatic with a power-law spectrum, the WMAP data alone require dark matter and favor a spectral index that is significantly less than the Harrison-Zel'dovich-Peebles scale-invariant spectrum ( n(s) = 1, r = 0). Adding additional data sets improves the constraints on these components and the spectral slope.....For a flat universe, the combination of WMAP and other astronomical data yield a constraint on the sum of the neutrino masses, Sigma m(nu) < 0.66 eV (95%CL). Consistent with the predictions of simple inflationary theories, we detect no significant deviations from Gaussianity in the CMB maps using Minkowski functionals, the bispectrum, trispectrum, and a new statistic designed to detect large-scale anisotropies in the fluctuations."

This 2007 report from Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series was cited 148 times in current journal articles indexed by Thomson Reuters during May-June 2008. For nearly a year now--five consecutive bimonthly periods--this paper has ranked as the most-cited physics report published in the last two years, aside from reviews. Prior to the most recent two-month count, citations to the paper have accrued as follows:

May-June 2008: 201 citations
January-February 2008: 160
November-December 2007: 116
September-October 2007: 107
July-August 2007: 6

Total citations to date: 738


SOURCE: Hot Papers Database (Included with a subscription to the print newsletter Science Watch®, available from the Research Services Group of Thomson Reuters. Packaged on a CD that is mailed with each Science Watch issue, the Hot Papers Database contains data on hundreds of highly cited papers published during the last two years. User interface permits searching by author, organization, journal, field, and more. Total citations, as well as citations accrued during successive bimonthly periods, can be assessed and graphed. An updated CD containing the most recent bimonthly data is mailed with every new issue of Science Watch, six times a year. The CD also includes an electronic version of the Science Watch issue in HTML format, for personal desktop access.

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