For 10 points, name this relic of the big bang, an almost-uniform background of blackbody radiation.
One damping process in this phenomenon is characterized by a suppression factor that is an integral with respect to the conformal time, is mediated by diffusion, and is named for Silk. B-mode polarization in this phenomenon is relatively suppressed since vector perturbations due to plasma vorticity are negligible because of post-inflation damping. The temperature of this phenomenon was first suggested by an excited rotational mode in CN. Rees et al derived a nonlinear second-order correction to this phenomenon which would be caused by time-varying gravitational fields; the largest contributor to that correction is probably the Great Attractor. It was created after (*) recombination at the surface of last scattering, and anisotropies in it were mapped by the WMAP probe For 10 points, name this relic of the big bang, an almost-uniform background of blackbody radiation.
One damping process in this phenomenon is characterized by a suppression factor that is an integral with respect to the conformal time, is mediated by diffusion, and is named for Silk.
cosmic microwave background radiation [or cosmic microwave background radiation; or CBR or CMB or MBR; prompt on partial answer]