Related papers: More on crinkles in the last scattering surface
Forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments (CMB) will provide precise new tests of structure-formation theories. The geometry of the Universe may be determined robustly, and the classical cosmological parameters, such as the…
Precision measurement of the cosmological recombination spectrum can provide an entire new window to look at the early universe. We aim to quantify the information hidden in the cosmological recombination spectrum and for this purpose we…
CMB spectral distortions are induced by Compton collisions with electrons. We review the various schemes to characterize the anisotropic CMB with a non-Planckian spectrum. We advocate using logarithmically averaged temperature moments as…
In this paper, we formulate a generalised photon Boltzmann hierarchy that allows us to model the evolution and creation of spectral distortion anisotropies in the early Universe. We directly build on our first paper in this series,…
Interest in non-standard recombination scenarios has been spurred by recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) results from BOOMERANG and MAXIMA, which show an unexpectedly low second acoustic peak, resulting in a best-fit baryon density…
Upcoming precision measurements of the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at high multipoles will need to be complemented by a more complete understanding of recombination, which determines the damping of…
The physical ingredients to describe the epoch of cosmological recombination are amazingly simple and well-understood. This fact allows us to take into account a very large variety of processes, still finding potentially measurable…
Primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) may explain observations of magnetic fields on extragalactic scales. They are most cleanly constrained by measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) anisotropies. Their effects on cosmic…
Current cosmological constraints from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies are typically derived assuming a standard recombination scheme, however additional resonance and ionizing radiation sources can delay recombination,…
y-type spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background allow us to detect clusters and groups of galaxies, filaments of hot gas and the non-uniformities in the warm hot intergalactic medium. Several CMB experiments (on small areas…
The difference in the adiabatic indices of photons and non-relativistic baryonic matter in the early Universe causes the electron temperature to be slightly lower than the radiation temperature. Thermalization of photons with a colder…
Second-order nonlinear optical response allows to detect different properties of the system associated with the inversion symmetry breaking. Here, we use a second harmonic generation effect to investigate the alignment of a…
The fine tuning of parameters required to reproduce our present day Universe suggests that our Universe may simply be a region within an eternally inflating super-region. Many other regions beyond our observable Universe would exist with…
A new approach to the cosmological recombination problem is presented, which completes our previous analysis on the effects of two-photon processes during the epoch of cosmological hydrogen recombination, accounting for ns-1s and nd-1s…
The inhomogeneous ionization state of the universe when the first sources of ionizing radiation appeared should lead to anisotropies in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. We use cosmological simulations of the process by…
Rayleigh scattering from neutral hydrogen during and shortly after recombination causes the CMB anisotropies to be significantly frequency dependent at high frequencies. This may be detectable with Planck, and would be a strong signal in…
We examine cosmic microwave background constraints on variations in the recombination history of the universe. We use a very general extension to the standard model of recombination characterized by two parameters, a and b, which multiply…
We study the signal in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization anisotropy resulting from patchy reionization. It is well known that the primordial polarization of the CMB is very sensitive to the details of reionization.…
We study the effects on cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies of spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure parameter between causally disconnected regions of the Universe at the time of recombination.…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization, whose experimental detection must become the next natural step in the study of the CMB radiation, depends on the dynamics of hydrogen recombination in the Universe, on the relation between…