Related papers: Constraining topological defects with temperature …
Recent work has emphasised the importance of vector and tensor contributions to the large scale microwave anisotropy fluctuations produced by cosmic defects. In this paper we provide a general discussion of these contributions, and how…
The measurement and characterization of the lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is key goal of the current and next generation of CMB experiments. We perform a case study of a three-channel balloon-borne CMB experiment…
A complete numerical calculation of the temperature anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in the presence of a stochastic helical magnetic field is presented which includes the contributions due to scalar,…
The recent detection of B-modes by BICEP2 has non-trivial implications for axion dark matter implied by combining the tensor interpretation with isocurvature constraints from Planck. In this paper the measurement is taken as fact, and its…
The temperature and polarization anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background are analyzed under the hypothesis that the same inflationary seed accounting for protogalactic magnetism also affects the Einstein-Boltzmann hierarchy whose…
In holographic models of cosmology based on the (A)dS/CFT correspondence, conformal symmetry is implicit in the dual description of the Universe. Generically, however, one cannot expect the (broken) conformal invariance in the cosmic…
We investigate the breaking of global statistical isotropy caused by a dark energy component with an energy-momentum tensor which has point symmetry, that could represent a cubic or hexagonal crystalline lattice. In such models Gaussian,…
We develop a unified framework to classify topological defects in insulators and superconductors described by spatially modulated Bloch and Bogoliubov de Gennes Hamiltonians. We consider Hamiltonians H(k,r) that vary slowly with adiabatic…
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…
One of the major predictions of inflation is the existence of a stochastic background of cosmological gravitational waves (GW). These gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background…
We perform a multiparameter likelihood analysis to compare measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra with predictions from models involving cosmic strings. Adding strings to the standard case of a primordial…
Understanding the properties of dust emission in the microwave domain is an important premise for the next generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments, devoted to the measurement of the primordial $B$-modes of polarization.…
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…
We extend and improve the modeling and analysis of large-amplitude, sharp inflationary steps for second order corrections required by the precision of the Planck CMB power spectrum and for arbitrary Dirac-Born-Infeld sound speed. With two…
Anisotropies in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background have been detected on a range of scales by several different experiments. These anisotropies reflect the primordial spectrum of metric perturbations in the early universe.…
The potential role of cosmic topological defects has raised interest in the astrophysical community for many years now. In this set of notes, we give an introduction to the subject of cosmic topological defects and some of their possible…
There exist consistent low energy effective field theories describing gravity in the Higgs phase that allow the coexistence of massive gravitons and the conventional 1/r potential of gravity. In an effort to constrain the value of the…
The BICEP experiment was designed specifically to search for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Using a novel small-aperture refractor and 49 pairs of…
Polarized thermal emission from Galactic dust is the dominant foreground for CMB polarization measurements at high frequencies, with its statistical properties set by the interplay between turbulence and magnetic fields in the multiphase…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization observations will require superb control of systematic errors in order to achieve their full scientific potential, particularly in the case of attempts to detect the B modes that may provide a…