Related papers: Observational Limits on Patchy Reionization: Impli…
The BICEP3 Polarimeter is a small aperture, refracting telescope, dedicated to the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at 95GHz. It is designed to target degree angular scale polarization patterns, in particular the…
We investigate the possibility that a low-temperature, low-frequency anomaly in the black-body spectrum, as it emerges when enlarging the Standard Model's gauge-group factor U(1)$_Y$ to SU(2) (Yang-Mills scale $\sim 10^{-4}$ eV), explains…
Secondary CMB anisotropies and polarization provide a laboratory to study structure formation in the reionized epoch. We consider the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect from mildly nonlinear large-scale structure and show that it is a…
The presence of a dipolar statistical anisotropy in the spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations was reported by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and has recently been confirmed in the Planck 2013 analysis…
The standard theoretical description $\Theta(\hat n)$ of the observed CMB temperature anisotropies is gauge-dependent. It is, however, well known that the gauge mode is limited to the monopole and the higher angular multipoles $\Theta_l$…
We present measurements of secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) covering the complete 2540 sq.deg. SPT-SZ survey area. Data…
Families of cosmic inflation models predict a primordial gravitational-wave background that imprints B-mode polarization pattern in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). High sensitivity instruments with wide frequency coverage and…
In light of the recent inference of a high optical depth to Thomson scattering, tau, from the WMAP data we investigate the effects of extended periods of partial ionization and ask if the value of tau inferred by assuming a single sharp…
The observational tests for the period of reionization of the universe are discussed. We show that this period can be observed as {\it negative} intensity patches of the CMB radiation with the amplitude $\delta T/T\sim 10^{-5}$ and the…
Reionization leads to large spatial fluctuations in the intergalactic temperature that can persist well after its completion. We study the imprints of such fluctuations on the $z\sim5$ Ly$\alpha$ forest flux power spectrum using a set of…
We study the signal from patchy reionization in view of the future high accuracy polarization measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We implement an extraction procedure of the patchy reionization signal analogous to CMB…
We calculate the bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies induced by the second-order fluctuations in the Boltzmann equation. In this paper, which is one of a series of papers on the numerical calculation…
We investigate the observational signatures of three models of the early Universe in the $B$-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. In addition to the standard single field inflationary model, we also consider…
Using the full four-year SPTpol 500 deg$^2$ dataset in both the 95 GHz and 150 GHz frequency bands, we present measurements of the temperature and $E$-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as the $E$-mode…
We study the effect of Faraday rotation due to a homogeneous magnetic field on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Scalar fluctuations give rise only to parity-even E-type polarization of the CMB. However in the…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power on the largest angular scales observed both by WMAP and COBE DMR appears to be lower than the one predicted by the standard model of cosmology with almost scale free primordial…
CMB full-sky temperature data show a hemispherical asymmetry in power nearly aligned with the Ecliptic. In real space, this anomaly can be quantified by the temperature variance in the northern and southern Ecliptic hemispheres, with the…
Recently, BICEP2 measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) $B$-mode polarization at degree angular scales has indicated the presence of tensor modes with a high tensor-to-scalar ratio of $r=0.2$ when assuming nearly…
The optical depth $\tau$ is the least well determined parameter in the standard model of cosmology, and one whose precise value is important for both understanding reionization and for inferring fundamental physics from cosmological…
We report cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum measurements from the first 100 sq. deg. field observed by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) at 150 and 220 GHz. On angular scales where the primary CMB anisotropy is dominant, ell ~<…