Figure 5

Figure 5: Top: The allowed range of the parameters Ω m, Ω Λ, from the WMAP 3-year data, is shown as a series of points (reproduced from [145]). The diagonal line shows the locus corresponding to a flat Universe (Ωm + Ω Λ = 1). An exactly flat Universe corresponds to H0 ∼ 70 km s–1 Mpc–1, but lower values are allowed provided the Universe is slightly closed. Bottom: Analysis reproduced from [154] showing the allowed range of the Hubble constant, in the form of the Hubble parameter h ≡ H0 / 100 km s–1 Mpc–1, and Ω m by combination of WMAP 3-year data with acoustic oscillations. A range of H0 is still allowed by these data, although the allowed region shrinks considerably if we assume that w = –1 or Ωk = 0.