Book Description

"The cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies are a direct probe of early Universe physics. They also carry information about the late Universe through different secondary effects, including gravitational lensing. Propagating away from the last scattering surface, the primary CMB photons are deflected by the intervening large-scale structure, creating slight distortions in the CMB radiation temperature and polarization patterns that can be detected statistically. In this thesis, we present constraints on the parameters describing our Universe on cosmological scales obtained with the use of CMB gravitational lensing measurements. We begin with a description of the current cosmological model and follow with a review of gravitational lensing effects on the CMB observables.We then present bounds on cosmological parameters set by the lensing power spectrum estimated from a combined SPT+Planck CMB temperature map on the SPT-SZ 2500 square-degrees patch of sky.Adding lensing information to primary CMB data helps tightening constraints on cosmological parameters affecting late-time growth, such as the matter fluctuation amplitude today, the spatial curvature and the sum of neutrino masses.Measurements of the CMB polarization sourced in the early Universe are hindered by the additional polarization created by the gravitational lensing deflections; this contaminating lensing signal can be estimated and removed. We discuss projected constraints on the scale-dependence of the primordial CMB polarization signal assuming that the lensing induced contamination can be subtracted through different scenarios." --