Douglas Scott (UBC)
Cosmic, Monopoles, Dipoles and Quadrupoles
In the history of studying the Cosmic Microwave Background, the
lowest-order moments were initially the most important. But now that the
spherical harmonic modes of the CMB have been measured so precisely out to
high multipoles, these first moments of the sky get very little attention.
But let me try to point out some things you might not already know about
the CMB monopole, dipole and quadrupole - as well as throwing in a
discussion of how these moments behave for other cosmic backgrounds, such
as the cosmic infrared background or even the neutrino background.