Related papers: Can Self-Ordering Scalar Fields explain the BICEP2…
A B-mode polarization signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is widely regarded as smoking gun evidence for gravitational waves produced during inflation. Here, we demonstrate that tensor perturbations sourced during…
Possible signatures of primordial magnetic fields on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies are reviewed. The signals that could be searched for include excess temperature anisotropies particularly…
Measurement of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature by Planck has resulted in extremely tight constraints on the $\Lambda$CDM model. However the data indicates a evidence of dipole modulated temperature fluctuations at large…
The recent detection by the BICEP2 collaboration of a high level of tensor modes has relevant implications which we briefly discuss in this short note. In particular, the large angle CMB B- mode polarisation seems to imply problematic…
Inflation predicts B-mode polarization with correlations that span superhorizon scales at recombination. In contrast, the correlations set up by causal sources, such as phase transitions or defects, necessarily vanish on superhorizon…
The detection of B-mode power spectrum by the BICEP2 collaboration constrains the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r=0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ for the lensed-$\Lambda$CDM model. The consistency of this big value with the {\em Planck} results requires a…
During the last years it has become clear that global O(N) defects and U(1) cosmic strings do not lead to the pronounced first acoustic peak in the power spectrum of anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background which has recently been…
We present a new and especially powerful signature of cosmic strings and other topological or non-topological defects in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We show that even if defects contribute 1% or less in the…
The surprisingly large value of $r$, the ratio of power in tensor to scalar density perturbations in the CMB reported by the BICEP2 Collaboration, if confirmed, provides strong evidence for Inflation at the GUT scale. While the Inflationary…
Primordial magnetic fields lead to non-Gaussian signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) even at the lowest order, as magnetic stresses and the temperature anisotropy they induce depend quadratically on the magnetic field. In…
The claimed detection of the BICEP2 experiment on the primordial B-mode of cosmic microwave background polarization suggests that cosmic inflation possibly takes place at the energy around the grand unified theory scale given a constraint…
Cosmic string wakes produce direct B-mode polarization at leading order in cosmological perturbation theory, as worked out in a previous publication \cite{BDH} in the case of a single string wake. Here we compute the angular power spectrum…
The cosmological birefringence caused by the coupling between the cosmic scalar field and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons through the Chern-Simons term can rotate the polarization planes of the photons, and mix the CMB E-mode…
Cosmological Birefringence (CB) is a phenomenon, caused by parity violating modifications to electrodynamics, whereby the linear polarisation angle of light changes as photons traverse a vacuum. It is possible to use a number of different…
We revisit large field inflation models with modulations in light of the recent discovery of the primordial B-mode polarization by the BICEP2 experiment, which, when combined with the Planck + WP + highL data, gives a strong hint for…
We investigate the weak lensing corrections to the CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies. We consider all the effects beyond the leading order: post-Born corrections, LSS corrections and, for the polarization anisotropies, the…
The BICEP2 collaboration has reported a strong B mode signal in the CMB polarization, which is well fit by a tensor-to-scalar ratio of r ~ 0.2. This is greater than the upper limit r < 0.11 obtained from the temperature anisotropies under…
BICEP1 is a millimeter-wavelength telescope designed specifically to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at degree angular scales. We present results from an analysis of the data acquired…
In the frame of a moving observer, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuation exhibits violation of Statistical Isotropy (SI). The SI violation effect from our local motion on CMB temperature fluctuation has been measured in the…
We study the eigenmodes of the spin-2 Laplacian in orientable Euclidean manifolds and their implications for the tensor-induced part of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies. We provide analytic…