THECOSMICMICROWAVEBACKGROUND ANDPARTICLEPHYSICS

In forthcoming years, connections between cosmology and particle physics willbe made increasingly important with the advent of a new generation of cosmicmicrowave background (CMB) experiments. Here, we review a number of theselinks. Our primary focus is on new CMB tests of inflation. We explain how theinflationary predictions for the geometry of the Universe and primordialdensity perturbations will be tested by CMB temperature fluctuations, and howthe gravitational waves predicted by inflation can be pursued with the CMBpolarization. The CMB signatures of topological defects and primordial magneticfields from cosmological phase transitions are also discussed. Furthermore, wereview current and future CMB constraints on various types of dark matter (e.g.massive neutrinos, weakly interacting massive particles, axions, vacuumenergy), decaying particles, the baryon asymmetry of the Universe,ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, exotic cosmological topologies, and other newphysics.Comment: 43 pages. To appear in Annual Reviews of Nuclear and Particle Scienc