Related papers: Constraining topological defects with temperature …

We examine the contribution of tensor modes, in addition to the dominant scalar ones, on the temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). To this end, we analyze in detail the temperature two-point angular correlation…

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies exhibit a large-scale dipolar power asymmetry. To determine whether this is due to a real, physical modulation or is simply a large statistical fluctuation requires the…

In this paper we constrain the cosmological parameters, in particular the tilt of tensor power spectrum, by adopting Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (B2), Planck released in 2013 (P13) and Wilkinson Microwaves…

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…

We compare the predictions of hybrid inflationary models that produce both adiabatic fluctuations and topological defects to first year WMAP results. We use a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to constrain the contribution of cosmic strings…

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…

We conduct a model-independent analysis of temporal features during inflation in the large-scale CMB temperature power spectrum allowing for the possibility of non-negligible tensor contributions. Of 20 principal components of the…

The measurement of B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background at large angular scales by the BICEP experiment suggests a stochastic gravitational wave background from early-universe inflation with a surprisingly large amplitude.…

One of the primary challenges facing upcoming CMB polarization experiments aiming to measure the inflationary B-mode signal is the removal of polarized foregrounds. The thermal dust foreground is often modeled as a single modified…

Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) contain information which has been pivotal in establishing the current cosmological model. These data can also be used to test well-motivated additions to this model, such as cosmic…

The standard cosmological model does not determine the spatial topology of the universe. This article revisits the signature of a non-trivial topology on the properties of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. We show that the…

The curl (B) modes of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization anisotropies are a unique probe of the primordial background of inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs). Unfortunately, the B-mode polarization anisotropies generated by…

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…

A detection of excess cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization on large scales allows the possibility of measuring not only the amplitude of these fluctuations but also their scale dependence, which can be parametrized as the…

We introduce the real space correlation function of $B$-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as a probe of superhorizon tensor perturbations created by inflation. By causality, any non-inflationary mechanism for…

We forecast the detectability of the lensing footprint of a collapsing cosmic texture, a topological defect proposed as an explanation of the CMB Cold Spot. Our pipeline is a quadratic, template-amplitude estimator for localized,…

Inflation creates both scalar (density) and tensor (gravity wave) metric perturbations. We find that the tensor mode contribution to the CMB anisotropy on large-angular scales can only exceed that of the scalar mode in models where the…

String models can produce successful inflationary scenarios in the context of brane collisions and in many of these models cosmic strings may also be produced. In scenarios such as KKLMMT the string contribution is naturally predicted to be…

A primordial cosmic microwave background B-mode is widely considered a "smoking gun" signature of an early period of inflationary expansion. However, competing theories of the origin of structure, including string gases and bouncing…

BICEP2 has reported the detection of a degree-scale B-mode polarization pattern in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and has interpreted the measurement as evidence for primordial gravitational waves. Motivated by the profound…