Related papers: Constraining topological defects with temperature …
We show that the B-mode polarization signal detected at low multipoles by BICEP2 cannot be entirely due to topological defects. This would be incompatible with the high-multipole B-mode polarization data and also with existing temperature…
In this work we discuss the possibility of cosmic defects being responsible for the B-mode signal measured by the BICEP2 collaboration. We also allow for the presence of other cosmological sources of B-modes such as inflationary…
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…
Searches for inflationary gravitational wave signals in the CMB B-mode polarisation are expected to reach unprecedented power over the next decade. A major difficulty in these ongoing searches is that galactic foregrounds such as dust can…
Recently, BICEP2 measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) $B$-mode polarization at degree angular scales has indicated the presence of tensor modes with a high tensor-to-scalar ratio of $r=0.2$ when assuming nearly…
We investigate the prior dependence on the inferred spectrum of primordial tensor perturbations, in light of recent results from BICEP2 and taking into account a possible dust contribution to polarized anisotropies. We highlight an…
We compute the polarization power spectra for global strings, monopoles, textures and nontopological textures, and compare them to inflationary models. We find that topological defect models predict a significant (1 microK) contribution to…
In a recent publication, we used the data from WMAP and SDSS to constrain the primordial perturbations and to predict the B-mode polarization sourced by cosmic string networks. We have been alerted by A. Slosar to the existence of errors in…
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…
Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies by BOOMERANG and MAXIMA collaborations have tightened the observational constraints on theories of structure formation. They disagree with the predictions of…
We analyze BICEP2 and Planck data using a model that includes CMB lensing, gravity waves, and polarized dust. Planck dust polarization maps have highlighted the difficulty of estimating the dust polarization in low intensity regions,…
The proposed CMBPol mission will be able to detect the imprint of topological defects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provided the contribution is sufficiently strong. We quantify the detection threshold for cosmic strings and for…
We evaluate the degradation of the accuracy of the component separation between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and foreground components caused by neglect of absorption of the monopole component of the CMB by the galactic…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) contains perturbations that are close to Gaussian and isotropic. This means that its information content, in the sense of the ability to constrain cosmological models, is closely related to the number…
The B-mode polarization spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) may be the smoking gun of not only the primordial tensor mode but also of the primordial vector mode. If there exist nonzero vector-mode metric perturbations in the…
A key goal of many Cosmic Microwave Background experiments is the detection of gravitational waves, through their B-mode polarization signal at large scales. To extract such a signal requires modelling contamination from the Galaxy. Using…
In inflationary models, gravitational waves are produced and generate B-type polarization in the CMB. Since B polarization is only generated by gravity waves it does not suffer from the cosmic variance. A perfect decomposition of the CMB…
We quantify the contamination from polarized diffuse Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust emissions to the B-modes of the CMB anisotropies on the degree angular scale, using data from the Planck and WMAP satellites. We compute power…
I present a briefly summary of the current status of inflationary models versus topological defects scenarios, as the mechanisms which could have induced the initial density perturbations, which left an imprint on the cosmic microwave…
We investigate a possibility of constraining statistical anisotropies of the primordial tensor perturbations by using future observations for the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) B-mode polarization. By parameterizing a…