The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), Charles Bennett (JHU Department of Physics & Astronomy)

Extraordinary progress has been made in cosmology.  We now have a Standard Model of Cosmology that explains a host of observations with only six parameters. Yet, we do not understand all of cosmology.  Perhaps the most fundamental remaining question is, "How did our universe begin?"  The inflation paradigm is increasingly supported by observations, but is no means firmly demonstrated.  The key remaining observation is to detect the gravitational waves predicted by the simplest inflation models. These waves are best detected by their impact on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The task is daunting, but several groups have already set out to make progress is area.  As I will describe in this talk, we have taken a novel approach to the problem, and we are now fully funded to build the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) to search very large angular scales on the sky for this fossil from the earliest epoch of the universe.