Related papers: An Estimator for statistical anisotropy from the C…
We present limits to the amplitude of non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations in the WMAP 1-year cosmic microwave background sky maps. A non-linear coupling parameter, f_NL, characterizes the amplitude of a quadratic term in the primordial…
Recently, the Planck 2013 results showed possible evidence for a dipolar power modulation of the CMB temperature fluctuations at low--(\ell) multipoles. This anomaly might imply certain deviations from statistical isotropy. To incorporate…
Most of the cosmological information extracted from the CMB has been obtained through the power spectrum, however there is much more to be learnt from the statistical distribution of the temperature random field. We review some recent…
The statistical expectation values of the temperature fluctuations and polarization of cosmic microwave background (CMB) are assumed to be preserved under rotations of the sky. We investigate the statistical isotropy (SI) of the CMB maps…
The standard cosmological model predicts statistically isotropic cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations characterized by the CMB temperature coefficients $a_{\ell m}$ being independent Gaussian random variables with zero mean and…
The Microwave Anisotropy Probe and Planck missions will provide low noise maps of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). These maps will allow measurement of the power spectrum of the CMB with measurement noise below…
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…
In the first part of this work, I review the theoretical framework of cosmological perturbation theory necessary to understand the generation and evolution of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. Using analytical and numerical…
The breakdown of statistical homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic perturbations is a generic feature of ultra large scale structure of the cosmos, in particular, of non trivial cosmic topology. The statistical isotropy (SI) of the Cosmic…
Recent observations opened up a new window on the inflationary model building. As it was firstly reported by the WMAP data, there may be some indications of statistical anisotropy on the CMB map, although the statistical significance of…
The breakdown of statistical homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic perturbations is a generic feature of ultra large scale structure of the cosmos, in particular, of non trivial cosmic topology. The statistical isotropy (SI) of the Cosmic…
Diffusion damping of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum results from imperfect photon-baryon coupling in the pre-recombination plasma. At redshift $5 \times 10^4 < z < 2 \times 10^6$, the plasma acquires an effective…
We present a CMB temperature power spectrum measurement at large angular scales from WMAP and Planck maps that were cleaned of foregrounds using a template-based approach described in a companion paper. We recover essentially the full-sky…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature bispectrum is currently the most precise tool for constraining primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). The Planck temperature data tightly constrain the amplitude of local-type NG: $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm…
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…
We investigate a statistical anisotropy on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum, which can be generated from the primordial non-Gaussianity induced by quantum fluctuations of a vector field. We find new configurations in the…
We report the most complete analysis to date of observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) obtained during the 1998 flight of BOOMERANG. We use two quite different methods to determine the angular power spectrum of the CMB in 20…
The most general homogeneous and isotropic statistical ensemble of linear scalar perturbations which are regular at early times, in a universe with only photons, baryons, neutrinos, and a cold dark matter (CDM) component, is described by a…
Single field inflationary models that seek to greatly enhance small scale power in order to form primordial black holes predict both a squeezed bispectrum that is enhanced by this small scale power and a potentially detectable enhancement…
We constrain several models of the early Universe that predict a statistical anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky. We make use of WMAP9 maps deconvolved with beam asymmetries. As compared to previous releases of WMAP…