THE PLANCK MISSION: RECENT RESULTS, COSMOLOGICAL AND FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

We provide a description of the latest status and performance of the Planck satellite, focusing on the final predicted sensitivity of Planck. The optimization of the observational strategy for the additional surveys following the nominal 15 months of integration (about two surveys) originally allocated and the limitation represented by astrophysical foreground emissions are presented. An outline of early and intermediate astrophysical results from the Planck Collaboration is provided. A concise view of some fundamental cosmological results that will be achieved by exploiting Planck's full set of temperature and polarization data are presented. Finally, the perspectives opened by Planck in answering some key questions in fundamental physics, with particular attention to parity symmetry analyses, are described.