The COBE Normalization of CMB Anisotropies

Abstract

With the advent of the COBE detection of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, the study of inhomogeneous cosmology has entered a new phase. It is now possible to accurately normalize fluctuations on the largest observable scales, in the linear regime. In this paper we present a model-independent method of normalizing theories to the full COBE data. This technique allows an extremely wide range of theories to be accurately normalized to COBE in a very simple and fast way. We give the best fitting normalization and relative peak likelihoods for a range of spectral shapes, and discuss the normalization for several popular theories. Additionally we present both Bayesian and frequentist measures of the goodness of fit of a representative range of theories to the COBE data.