Astronomy and Astrophysics Cosmology from Cosmic Microwave Background and Galaxy Clusters

We present the results of analysis of constraints on cosmological parameters from cosmic microwave background (CMB) alone and in combination with galaxy cluster baryon fraction assuming inflation– generated adiabatic scalar fluctuations. The CMB constraints are obtained using our likelihood approximation method (Bartlett et al., 2000, Douspis et al., 2001). In the present analysis we use the new data coming from MAXIMA and BOOMERanG balloon borne experiments, the first results of the DASI interferometer together with the COBE/DMR data. The quality of these independent data sets implies that the C ℓ are rather well known, and allow reliable constraints. We found that the constraints in the Ω− H 0 plane are very tightened, favouring a flat Universe, that the index of the primordial fluctuations is very close to one, that the primordial baryon density is now in good agreement with primordial nucleosynthesis. Nevertheless degeneracies between several parameters still exist, and for instance the constraint on the cosmological constant or the Hubble constant are very weak, preferred values being low. A way to break these degeneracies is to " cross-constrain " the parameters by combining with constraints from other independent data. We use the baryon fraction determination from X–ray clusters of galaxies as an additional constraint and show that the combined analysis leads to strong constraints on all cosmological parameters. Using a high baryon fraction (∼ 15% for h = 0.5) we found that a rather low Hubble constant, with values around 80 km/s/Mpc is ruled out. Using a recent and low baryon fraction estimation (∼ 10% for h = 0.5) we found a preferred model with a low Hubble constant and a high density content (Ω m), an Einstein–de Sitter model being only weakly ruled out. A&A manuscript no. (will be inserted by hand later) Your thesaurus codes are: missing; you have not inserted them