Constraints on cosmological parameters from recent measurements of cosmic microwave background anisotropy

A key prediction of cosmological theories for the origin and evolution of structure in the Universe is the existence of a ‘Doppler peak’ in the angular power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. We present new results from a study of recent CMB observations which provide the first strong evidence for the existence of a ‘Doppler peak’ localized in both angular scale and amplitude. This first estimate of the angular position of the peak is used to place a new direct limit on the curvature of the Universe, corresponding to a density of , consistent with a flat universe. Very low-density ‘open’ universe models are inconsistent with this limit unless there is a significant contribution from a cosmological constant. For a flat standard cold dark matter dominated universe we use our results in conjunction with big bang nucleosynthesis constraints to determine the value of the Hubble constant as H0 = 30 – 70 km s−1 Mpc−1 for baryon fractions Ωb = 0.05 to 0.2. For H0 = 50 km s−1 Mpc−1 we find the primordial spectral index of the fluctuations to be n = 1.1 ± 0.1, in close agreement with the inflationary prediction of n ≃ 1.0.