We present cosmological parameters derived from the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation observed at 148 GHz and 218 GHz over 296 deg 2 with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) during its 2008 season. ACT measures fluctuations at scales 500 < < 10,000. We fit a model for the lensed CMB, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ), and foreground contribution to the 148 GHz and 218 GHz power spectra, including thermal and kinetic SZ, Poisson power from radio and infrared point sources, and clustered power from infrared point sources. At = 3000, about half the power at 148 GHz comes from primary CMB after masking bright radio sources. The power from thermal and kinetic SZ is estimated to be B 3000 = 6.8 ± 2.9 μK 2 , where B ≡ ( + 1)C /2π . The IR Poisson power at 148 GHz is B 3000 = 7.8 ± 0.7 μK 2 (C = 5.5 ± 0.5 nK 2 ), and a clustered IR component is required with B 3000 = 4.6 ± 0.9 μK 2 , assuming an analytic model for its power spectrum shape. At 218 GHz only about 15% of the power, approximately 27 μK 2 , is CMB anisotropy at = 3000. The remaining 85% is attributed to IR sources (approximately 50% Poisson and 35% clustered), with spectral index α = 3.69 ± 0.14 for flux scaling as S(ν) ∝ ν α . We estimate primary cosmological parameters from the less contaminated 148 GHz spectrum, marginalizing over SZ and source power. The ΛCDM cosmological model is a good fit to the data (χ 2 /dof = 29/46), and ΛCDM parameters estimated from ACT+Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) are consistent with the seven-year WMAP limits, with scale invariant n s = 1 excluded at 99.7% confidence level (CL) (3σ ). A model with no CMB lensing is disfavored at 2.8σ . By measuring the third to seventh acoustic peaks, and probing the Silk damping regime, the ACT data improve limits on cosmological parameters that affect the small-scale CMB power. The ACT data combined with WMAP give a 6σ detection of primordial helium, with Y P = 0.313 ± 0.044, and a 4σ detection of relativistic species, assumed to be neutrinos, with N eff = 5.3 ± 1.3 (4.6 ± 0.8 with BAO+H 0 data). From the CMB alone the running of the spectral index is constrained to be dn s /d ln k = −0.034 ± 0.018, the limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r < 0.25 (95% CL), and the possible contribution of Nambu cosmic strings to the power spectrum is constrained to string tension Gμ < 1.6 × 10 −7 (95% CL).

We present constraints on cosmological and astrophysical parameters from high-resolution microwave background maps at 148 GHz and 218 GHz made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in three seasons of observations from 2008 to 2010. A model of primary cosmological and secondary foreground parameters is fit to the map power spectra and lensing deflection power spectrum, including contributions from both the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect and the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect, Poisson and correlated anisotropy from unresolved infrared sources, radio sources, and the correlation between the tSZ effect and infrared sources. The power ℓ 2 C ℓ /2π of the thermal SZ power spectrum at 148 GHz is measured to be 3.4 ± 1.4 µK 2 at ℓ = 3000, while the corresponding amplitude of the kinematic SZ power spectrum has a 95% confidence level upper limit of 8.6 µK 2. Combining ACT power spectra with the WMAP 7-year temperature and polarization power spectra, we find excellent consistency with the LCDM model. We constrain the number of effective relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe to be N eff = 2.79 ± 0.56, in agreement with the canonical value of N eff = 3.046 for three massless neutrinos. We constrain the sum of the neutrino masses to be Σm ν < 0.39 eV at 95% confidence when combining ACT and WMAP 7-year data with BAO and Hubble constant measurements. We constrain the amount of primordial helium to be Y p = 0.225 ± 0.034, and measure no variation in the fine structure constant α since recombination, with α/α 0 = 1.004 ± 0.005. We also find no evidence for any running of the scalar spectral index, dn s /d ln k = −0.004 ± 0.012.

We report on 23 clusters detected blindly as Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) decrements in a 148 GHz, 455 deg 2 map of the southern sky made with data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope 2008 observing season. All SZ detections announced in this work have confirmed optical counterparts. Ten of the clusters are new discoveries. One newly discovered cluster, ACT-CL J0102−4915, with a redshift of 0.75 (photometric), has an SZ decrement comparable to the most massive systems at lower redshifts. Simulations of the cluster recovery method reproduce the sample purity measured by optical follow-up. In particular, for clusters detected with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than six, simulations are consistent with optical follow-up that demonstrated this subsample is 100% pure. The simulations further imply that the total sample is 80% complete for clusters with mass in excess of 6 × 10 14 solar masses referenced to the cluster volume characterized by 500 times the critical density. The Compton y-X-ray luminosity mass comparison for the 11 best-detected clusters visually agrees with both self-similar and non-adiabatic, simulation-derived scaling laws.

We present measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope at 148 GHz and 218 GHz, as well as the cross-frequency spectrum between the two channels. Our results clearly show the second through the seventh acoustic peaks in the CMB power spectrum. The measurements of these higher-order peaks provide an additional test of the ΛCDM cosmological model. At > 3000, we detect power in excess of the primary anisotropy spectrum of the CMB. At lower multipoles 500 < < 3000, we find evidence for gravitational lensing of the CMB in the power spectrum at the 2.8σ level. We also detect a low level of Galactic dust in our maps, which demonstrates that we can recover known faint, diffuse signals.

We present optical and X-ray properties for the first confirmed galaxy cluster sample selected by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) from 148 GHz maps over 455 deg 2 of sky made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). These maps, coupled with multi-band imaging on 4 m class optical telescopes, have yielded a sample of 23 galaxy clusters with redshifts between 0.118 and 1.066. Of these 23 clusters, 10 are newly discovered. The selection of this sample is approximately mass limited and essentially independent of redshift. We provide optical positions, images, redshifts, and X-ray fluxes and luminosities for the full sample, and X-ray temperatures of an important subset. The mass limit of the full sample is around 8.0×1014 M , with a number distribution that peaks around a redshift of 0.4. For the 10 highest significance SZE-selected cluster candidates, all of which are optically confirmed, the mass threshold is 1 × 10 15 M and the redshift range is 0.167-1.066. Archival observations from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT provide X-ray luminosities and temperatures that are broadly consistent with this mass threshold. Our optical follow-up procedure also allowed us to assess the purity of the ACT cluster sample. Eighty (one hundred) percent of the 148 GHz candidates with signal-to-noise ratios greater than 5.1 (5.7) are confirmed as massive clusters. The reported sample represents one of the largest SZE-selected sample of massive clusters over all redshifts within a cosmologically significant survey volume, which will enable cosmological studies as well as future studies on the evolution, morphology, and stellar populations in the most massive clusters in the universe.