Related papers: Large Scale Anomalies in the Microwave Background:…
We study the effect of a finite topology on the temperature correlations of the cosmic microwave background in a flat universe. Analytic expressions for the angular power spectrum are given for all possible finite flat models. We examine…
We revisit the alignments of the largest structures observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using the seven and nine-year WMAP and first-year Planck data releases. The observed alignments -- the quadrupole with the octopole and…
The non-linearity of Einstein's equations makes it possible for small-scale matter inhomogeneities to affect the Universe at cosmological distances. We study the size of such effects using a simple heuristic model that captures the most…
The universe displays a three-dimensional pattern of hot and cold spots in the radiation remnant from the big bang. The global geometry of the universe can be revealed in the spatial distribution of these spots. In a topologically compact…
Measurement of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background is most often based on a spherical harmonic analysis of the observed temperature anisotropies. Even if all-sky maps are obtained, however, it is likely that the…
Physical models for the hemispherical power asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) reported by the Planck Collaboration must satisfy CMB constraints to the homogeneity of the Universe and quasar constraints to power asymmetries.…
It is generally assumed that on sufficiently large scales the Universe is well-described as a homogeneous, isotropic FRW cosmology with a dark energy. Does the formation of nonlinear cosmic inhomogeneities produce a significant effect on…
We consider the imprints of local massive defects, such as a black hole or a massive monopole, during inflation. The massive defect breaks the background homogeneity. We consider the limit that the physical Schwarzschild radius of the…
We study the uniqueness and robustness of acoustic signatures in the cosmic microwave background by allowing for the possibility that they are generated by some as yet unknown source of gravitational perturbations. The acoustic {\it…
We discuss the effect of curvature and matter inhomogeneities on the averaged scalar curvature of the present-day Universe. Motivated by studies of averaged inhomogeneous cosmologies, we contemplate on the question whether it is sensible to…
We discuss inhomogeneous cosmological models which satisfy the Copernican principle. We construct some inhomogeneous cosmological models starting from the ansatz that the all the observers in the models view an isotropic cosmic microwave…
The shortest distance around the Universe through us is unlikely to be much larger than the horizon diameter if microwave background anomalies are due to cosmic topology. We show that observational constraints from the lack of matched…
Several analyses of the microwave sky maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have drawn attention to alignments amongst the low-order multipoles. Amongst the various possible explanations, an effect of cosmic topology has…
We construct high-precision models of the Universe that contain radiation, a cosmological constant, and periodically distributed inhomogeneous matter. The density contrasts in these models are allowed to be highly non-linear, and the…
Precision measurements of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and of the clustering of large-scale structure have supposedly confirmed that the primordial density perturbation has a (nearly) scale-invariant spectrum. However…
The extragalactic background radiation produced by distant galaxies emitting in the far infrared limits the sensitivity of telescopes operating in this range due to confusion. We have constructed a model of the infrared background based on…
How does inhomogeneity affect our interpretation of cosmological observations? It has long been wondered to what extent the observable properties of an inhomogeneous universe differ from those of a corresponding…
Measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum, or three-point correlation function, has now become one of the principle efforts in early-Universe cosmology. Here we show that there is a odd-parity component of the CMB…
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have revealed a dipolar asymmetry in power at the largest scales, in apparent contradiction with the statistical isotropy of standard cosmological models. The…
Excess emission over expected diffuse astrophysical backgrounds in the direction of the Galactic center region has been claimed at various wavelengths, from radio to gamma rays. Among particle models advocated to explain such observations,…