Norwegian Participation in the Planck LFI Instrument and Cosmology with the Nordic Optical Telescope: Supplementary application

The European Planck mission will from 2007 map in detail the Cosmic Microwave Background with sensitivity and resolution unreachable by any other planned experiment, making possible answering the most fundamental questions of cosmology. Based on the commi tment to fund Norwegian participation in the Planck project made by the Research Council of Norway in March 1999, the core of the Electrical Ground Support Equipement of the LFI instrument has been built by Norwegian industry securing full data rights for our group for the Planck data. We need to fund the human resources necessary to build up the know-how and analysis tools necessary to reap the largest possible scientific return from the Planck investment when we get access to the Planck data from 2009. Also the development of analysis methods constitute important publishable research, and before the Planck data become available, the methods are used on other existing data sets, e.g., from WMAP and ground- and balloon based CMB experiments. Our scientif ic effort is centred on methods for estimating temperature and polarization power spectra, measuring (and understanding) deviations from Gaussianity and studying the evolution of and dark matter distribution in clusters of galaxies. Preparation for and f ollowup of the Planck mission with ground based optical studies is vital for our use of Planck, especially in the theme of clusters of galaxies. The Nordic Optical Telescope provides, because of its excellent image quality, a unique Norwegian infrastructu re, and we apply for funds necessary to expoit it in synergy with the Planck project.