Related papers: Causality and Primordial Tensor Modes
Precise polarisation measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) require accurate knowledge of the instrument orientation relative to the sky frame used to define the cosmological Stokes parameters. Suitable celestial calibration…
One of the major targets for next-generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments is the detection of the primordial B-mode signal. Planning is under way for Stage-IV experiments that are projected to have instrumental noise small…
We investigate which practical constraints are imposed by foregrounds to the detection of the B-mode polarization generated by gravitational waves in the case of experiments of the type currently being planned. Because the B-mode signal is…
The existence of a cosmic background of primordial gravitational waves (PGWB) is a robust prediction of inflationary cosmology, but it has so far evaded discovery. The most promising avenue of its detection is via measurements of Cosmic…
(Abridged) Despite the great success of precision cosmology, cosmologists cannot fully explain the initial conditions of the Universe. Inflation, an exponential expansion in the first 10^-36s, is a promising potential explanation. A generic…
The primordial CMB $B$-mode search is on the spotlight of the scientific community due to the large amount of cosmological information that is encoded in the primeval signal. However, the detection of this signal is challenging from the…
We discuss whether an unaccounted contribution to the Cosmic Microwave Background polarization $B$-mode by primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) can bias future constraints on inflationary gravitational waves. As a case-study, we consider a…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
The detection of primordial $B$-mode polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a major observational goal in modern Cosmology, offering a potential window into inflationary physics through the measurement of the…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is encoded with exactly the same cosmic information as the CMB's temperature anistropy. However, polarization has the additional promise of accurately probing the reionization…
Inflationary cosmology is successful in explaining a number of outstanding cosmological issues including the flatness, the horizon and the relic issues. More spectacular is the experimental confirmation of the structure as arose from the…
This chapter describes how the Cosmic Gravitational Wave Background induces a specific type of CMB polarization and describes the first experiment dedicated to testing this most-promising signature of inflation. This experiment, the…
Inflation as the leading paradigm depicting the very early universe physics could leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Using currently available CMB observations, we give the tightest constraints on inflation…
The recent BICEP2 B-mode polarization determination of an inflationary tensor-scalar ratio $r=0.2^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ is in tension with simple scale-free models of inflation due to a lack of a corresponding low multipole excess in the…
We investigate the impact of a hypothesized delayed initiation of inflation, characterized by a cutoff k_min to the primordial power spectrum in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This cutoff affects both the scalar and tensor spectra,…
The motion of a pseudo-scalar field $X$ during inflation naturally induces a significant amplification of the gauge fields to which it is coupled. The amplified gauge fields can source characteristic scalar and tensor primordial…
We study temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation sourced from primordial cross-bispectra between metric perturbations and vector fields, which are generated from the inflation model where…
Loop quantum cosmology allows to replace the original singularity by a quantum bounce followed by a phase of fast expansion called super-inflation. In this paper, we use a simple analytic description of super-inflation using the equation of…
Inflation generically predicts a stochastic background of gravitational waves over a broad range of frequencies, from those accessible with cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements, to those accessible directly with gravitational-wave…
If the inflaton is a pseudoscalar, then it naturally interacts with gauge fields via an axion-like coupling to $F_{\mu\nu} \tilde{F}^{\mu\nu}$. Through this coupling, the rolling inflaton produces quanta of the gauge field, that in their…