Related papers: Optimising Boltzmann codes for the Planck era
The fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, controls the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. There are extensions of the standard model in which $\alpha$ is dynamical on cosmological length and time-scales. The physics of the cosmic…
One of the main obstacles for extracting the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from mm/submm observations is the pollution from the main Galactic components: synchrotron, free-free and thermal dust emission. The feasibility of using simple…
While the observed nearly scale-invariant initial power spectrum is regarded as one of the favorable evidence of the standard inflationary cosmology, precision observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies also suggest…
The Universe's initial conditions, in particular baryon and cold dark matter (CDM) isocurvature perturbations, are poorly constrained on sub-Mpc scales. In this paper, we develop a new formalism to compute the effect of small-scale baryon…
We constrain plausible dark energy models, parametrized by multiple candidate equation of state, using the recently published Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy data from Planck together with the WMAP-9 low-$\ell$…
Combining the latest Planck, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data, we exploit the recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode power spectra data released by the BICEP2 collaboration to…
We estimate the accuracy with which various cosmological parameters can be determined from the CMB temperature and polarization data when various galactic unpolarized and polarized foregrounds are included and marginalized using the…
The first observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from NASA's \emph{Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe} (WMAP) led to finding `alignment' anomalies not expected from fluctuations in the isotropic cosmological model. We study…
The increasing precision of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations has unveiled significant tensions between different datasets, notably between Planck and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), as well as with the late-Universe…
We use the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy data from Planck to constrain the spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure constant \alpha. Through Thompson scattering of CMB photons, spatial anisotropies of \alpha lead to…
Breakdown of rotational invariance of the primordial power spectrum manifests in the statistical anisotropy of the observed Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. Hemispherical power asymmetry in the CMB may be caused due to a dipolar…
Statistical isotropy is often assumed in cosmology and should be tested rigorously against observational data. We construct simple quadratic estimators to reconstruct asymmetry in the primordial power spectrum from CMB temperature and…
Recent estimates of cosmological parameters derived from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies are based on the assumption that we know the precise amount of energy density in relativistic particles in the universe, $\omega_{rel}$,…
The Fisher matrix formalism has in recent times become the standard method for predicting the precision with which various cosmological parameters can be extracted from future data. This approach is fast, and generally returns accurate…
With the release of the data from the Boomerang and MAXIMA-1 balloon flights, estimates of cosmological parameters based on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) have reached unprecedented precision. In this paper I show that it is possible…
We investigate the anisotropy in cosmic microwave background Planck maps due to the coupling between its beam asymmetry and uneven scanning strategy. Introducing a pixel space estimator based on the temperature gradients, we find a highly…
We determine the best-fit values and confidence limits for dynamical dark energy parameters together with other cosmological parameters on the basis of different datasets which include WMAP9 or Planck-2013 results on CMB anisotropy, BAO…
Inflation gives rise to a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of tensor perturbations (gravitational waves), their contribution to the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) anisotropy depends upon the present cosmological parameters as well as…
The current enthusiam to measure fluctuations in the CMB power spectrum at angular scales between 0.1 and 1 degree is largely motivated by the expectation that CMB determinations of cosmological parameters will be of unprecedented…
We study the large-scale angular correlation signatures of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature fluctuations from WMAP data in several spherical cap regions of the celestial sphere, outside the Kp0 or Kp2 cut-sky masks. We…