Related papers: Cosmic Clocks
Quantum fluctuations during inflation may be responsible for temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations of CMB anisotropies can be used to falsify many currently popular models. In this paper we discuss…
Breakthroughs in physics and astrophysics are often driven by technological advances, with the recent detection of gravitational waves being one such example. This white paper focuses upon how improved astrometric and spectroscopic…
Recent attempts at measuring the variation of $c$ using an assortment of standard candles and the redshift-dependent Hubble expansion rate inferred from the currently available catalog of cosmic chronometers have tended to show that the…
We examine the degree to which observations of large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization can shed light on the puzzling large-scale power modulation in maps of CMB anisotropy. We consider a phenomenological model in which…
We argue that the observed large-scale cosmic microwave anomalies, discovered by WMAP and confirmed by the Planck satellite, are most naturally explained in the context of a marginally-open universe. Particular focus is placed on the dipole…
The CMB is a powerful probe of early-universe physics but is only observed after passing through large-scale structure, which changes the observed spectra in important model-dependent ways. This is of particular concern given recent claims…
We predict the imprint of linear bubbly perturbations on the polarization and temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We analytically model a bubbly density perturbation at the beginning of the radiation dominated…
The observed power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is consistent with inflationary cosmology, which predicts a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum of quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field as they exit the Hubble…
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 theoretical basis for the prediction of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background is very well developed. Very low amplitude density and temperature perturbations produce small gravitational effects, leading to an anisotropy that…
Weak-lensing distortions of the cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) temperature and polarization patterns can reveal important clues to the intervening large-scale structure. The effect of lensing is to deflect the primary temperature and…
We show how observations of temperature fluctuations in cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be used to extract information related to the large scale structure, including dark matter distribution, pressure and halo velocities involving…
I present a pedagogical review of inflation and the cosmic microwave background. I describe how a short period of accelerated expansion can replace the special initial conditions of the standard big bang model. I also describe the…
The leading candidate for the very early universe is described by a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. While the standard paradigm invokes a single slow-rolling field, many different models may be constructed which fit the…
Since the temperature fluctuations in cosmic microwave background (CMB) on large-angular scales probe length scales that were super-horizon sized at photon decoupling and hence insensitive to microphysical processes, the low-multipole CMB…
The COBE microwave background temperature fluctuations and the abundance of local rich clusters of galaxies provide the two most powerful constraints on cosmological models. When all variants of the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model are…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations effectively measure the basic properties of the universe during the recombination epoch. CMB measurements fix the distance to the surface of last scatter, the sound horizon of the…
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provide a unique opportunity for a direct study of the primordial cosmic plasma at redshift z ~1000. The angular power spectra of temperature and polarisation fluctuations are…
It has been recently proposed that the presence of a temporal electromagnetic field on cosmological scales could explain the phase of accelerated expansion that the universe is currently undergoing. The field contributes as a cosmological…
This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its…