Abstract:

I will present a measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) gravitational lensing potential using data from the first two years of observations with SPTpol, the polarimeter installed on the South Pole Telescope. Measurements of gravitational lensing of the CMB directly probe the projected mass in the universe out to high redshifts. Gravitational lensing encodes a wealth of information in the CMB about the growth and geometry of large-scale structure, which is sensitive to cosmic acceleration (dark energy), the expansion history of the universe and the properties of neutrinos. I will also discuss my work measuring the primary temperature anisotropies of the CMB and the resulting constraints on cosmic neutrinos.