Powershell equivalent of bash ampersand (&) for forking/running background processes

Question

In bash the ampersand (&) can be used to run a command in the background and return interactive control to the user before the command has finished running. Is there an

Answer 1

ps2> start-job {start-sleep 20}

i have not yet figured out how to get stdout in realtime, start-job requires you to poll stdout with get-job

update: i couldn't start-job to easily do what i want which is basically the bash & operator. here's my best hack so far

PS> notepad $profile #edit init script -- added these lines
function beep { write-host `a }
function ajp { start powershell {ant java-platform|out-null;beep} } #new window, stderr only, beep when done
function acjp { start powershell {ant clean java-platform|out-null;beep} }
PS> . $profile #re-load profile script
PS> ajp