Related papers: Bianchi VII_h models and the cold spot texture
For the simplest inflation models, the recent detection of a large primordial B-mode polarization signal by the BICEP2 experiment indicates a slight tension with the upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, from the Planck satellite.…
We investigate the sources of parity asymmetry in the CMB temperature maps using a pixel domain approach. We demonstrate that this anomaly is mainly associated with the presence of two pairs of high asymmetry regions. The first pair of…
The Planck Catalogue of Galactic Cold Clumps (PGCC) contains over 13000 sources detected based on their cold dust signature. They are believed to consist of a mixture of quiescent, pre-stellar, and already star-forming objects. We extracted…
Observations show that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contains tiny variations at the 10^{-5} level around its black-body equilibrium temperature. The detection of these temperature fluctuations provides to modern Cosmology evidence…
Accurate maps of Galactic reddening are important for a number of applications, such as mapping the peculiar velocity field in the nearby Universe. Of particular concern are systematic errors which vary slowly as a function of position on…
We present the JHKs light curves for the double-lined eclipsing binary 2MASS J05352184-0546085, in which both components are brown dwarfs. We analyze these light curves with the published Ic-band light curve and radial velocities to provide…
Recent BICEP/Keck data on the cosmic microwave background, in combination with previous WMAP and Planck data, impose strong new constraints on the tilt in the scalar perturbation spectrum, $n_s$, as well as the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$.…
Standard inflationary hot big bang cosmology predicts small fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with isotropic Gaussian statistics. All measurements support the standard theory, except for a few anomalies discovered in the…
Recent neutrino experiments have made very significant progresses and our knowledge of neutrino masses and mixing has considerably improved. In a model independent Monte Carlo approach, we have examined a very large class of textures, in…
We explore the origin of the observed Lya and other UV lines from galaxies at z<3.7 by detailed modelling of the spectra. The objects are chosen among those showing a) UV-optical-near-IR lines, b) only UV lines and c) those showing Lya in…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy observed by WMAP has an anomalous dip at l~20 and bump at l~40. One explanation for this structure is the presence of features in the primordial curvature…
Within the project Galactic Cold Cores we are carrying out Herschel photometric observations of cold interstellar clouds detected with the Planck satellite. The three fields observed as part of the Herschel science demonstration phase (SDP)…
The statistics of extremal points in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature (hot and cold spots) have been well explored in the literature, and have been used to constrain models of the early Universe. Here, we extend the study…
Thermal X-ray emission from rotation-powered pulsars is believed to originate from localized "hotspots" on the stellar surface occurring where large-scale currents from the magnetosphere return to heat the atmosphere. Lightcurve modeling…
The recent study of BOOMERanG 150 GHz Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps have detected ellipticity of the temperature anisotropy spots independent on the temperature threshold. The effect has been found for spots up to several…
The lensing power spectrum from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps will be measured with unprecedented precision with upcoming experiments, including upgrades to ACT and SPT. Achieving significant improvements in…
This paper considers a non-standard problem of generating samples from a low-temperature Gibbs distribution with \emph{constrained} support, when some of the coordinates of the mode lie on the boundary. These coordinates are referred to as…
Point lens microlensing events with impact parameter close to the source stellar radius allow the observer to study the surface brightness profile of the lensed source. We have examined the effect of photospheric star spots on multicolour…
We study the effect of global topology of the spatial geometry on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for closed flat and closed hyperbolic models in which the spatial hypersurface is multiply connected. If the CMB temperature…
Implications of recently measured leptonic mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ as well as the other two mixing angles have been examined for Fritzsch-like mass matrices with minimal texture for Dirac neutrinos. Interestingly, the existing data seems…