Related papers: A New Window on Primordial non-Gaussianity
It is commonly assumed that the stochastic background of gravitational waves on cosmological scales follows an almost scale-independent power spectrum, as generically predicted by the inflationary paradigm. However, it is not inconceivable…
Non-linear CMB temperature anisotropies up to the third-order on large scales are calculated. On large scales and in the Sachs-Wolfe limit, we give the explicit expression for the observed temperature anisotropy in terms of the primordial…
Distortions in the primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) along the line-of-sight can be modeled and described using 11 fields. These distortion fields correspond to various cosmological signals such as weak gravitational lensing of…
We investigate the relative sensitivities of several tests for deviations from Gaussianity in the primordial distribution of density perturbations. We consider models for non-Gaussianity that mimic that which comes from inflation as well as…
Probing primordial curvature perturbations on small scales, beyond those accessible using cosmic microwave background (CMB) primary anisotropies and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data, remains a major open challenge. Current constraints on the…
The assumption of Gaussianity of the primordial perturbations plays an important role in modern cosmology. The most direct test of this hypothesis consists in testing Gaussianity of the CMB maps. Counting the pixels with the temperatures in…
The 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuation from the Dark Ages ($z \simeq 30-100$) will allow us to probe the inflationary epoch on very small scales ($>0.1 \, \mbox{Mpc}^{-1}$), inaccessible to cosmic microwave background experiments.…
Squeezed primordial non-Gaussianity can strongly constrain early-universe physics, but it can only be observed on the CMB after it has been gravitationally lensed. We give a new simple non-perturbative prescription for accurately…
We explore a systematic approach to the analysis of primordial non-Gaussianity using fluctuations in temperature and polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Following Munshi & Heavens (2009), we define a set of power-spectra…
Deviations from the blackbody spectral energy distribution of the CMB are a precise probe of physical processes active both in the early universe (such as those connected to particle decays and inflation) and at later times (e.g.…
The damping of a non-uniform magnetic field between the redshifts of about $10^4$ and $10^6$ injects energy into the photon-baryon plasma and causes the CMB to deviate from a perfect blackbody spectrum, producing a so-called…
We study the covariance in the angular power spectrum estimates of CMB fluctuations when the primordial fluctuations are non-Gaussian. The non-Gaussian covariance comes from a nonzero connected four-point correlation function -- or the…
Gaussianity and statistical isotropy of the Universe are modern cosmology's minimal set of hypotheses. In this work we introduce a new statistical test to detect observational deviations from this minimal set. By defining the temperature…
We use the Planck HFI channel maps to make an all sky map of $\mu$-distortion fluctuations. Our $\mu$-type distortion map is dominated by the $y$-type distortion contamination from the hot gas in the low redshift Universe and we can thus…
We study signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) induced by the presence of strong spatial curvature prior to the epoch of inflation which generated our present universe. If inflation does not last sufficiently long to drive the…
Recent studies have shown that the primordial non-Gaussianity affects clustering of dark matter halos through a scale-dependent bias and various constraints on the non-Gaussianity through this scale-dependent bias have been placed. Here we…
It is possible to classify pixels of a smoothed cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuation map according to their local curvature in ``hill'', ``lake'' and ``saddle'' regions. In the Gaussian case, fractional areas occupied by pixels of…
I will discuss to what degree the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be used to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity involving one tensor and two scalar fluctuations, focusing on the correlation of one $B$-mode polarization fluctuation…
We investigate the CMB $\mu$ distortion in models where two uncorrelated sources contribute to primordial perturbations. We parameterise each source by an amplitude, tilt, running and running of the running. We perform a detailed analysis…
Enormous information about interactions is contained in the non-Gaussianities of the primordial curvature perturbations, which are essential to break the degeneracy of inflationary models. We study the primordial bispectra for G-inflation…