A Comparison of Cosmological Parameters Determined from CMB Temperature Power Spectra from the South Pole Telescope and the Planck Satellite

Understand

The Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature data are best fit with a LCDM model that is in mild tension with constraints from other cosmological probes.

• The South Pole Telescope (SPT) 2540 $\text{deg}^2$ SPT-SZ survey offers measurements on sub-degree angular scales (multipoles $650 \leq \ell \leq 2500$) with sufficient precision to use as an independent check of the Planck data.
• Here we build on the recent joint analysis of the SPT-SZ and Planck data in \citet{hou17} by comparing LCDM parameter estimates using the temperature power spectrum from both data sets in the SPT-SZ survey region.
• We also restrict the multipole range used in parameter fitting to focus on modes measured well by both SPT and Planck, thereby greatly reducing sample variance as a driver of parameter differences and creating a stringent test for systematic errors.