Related papers: Large scale CMB anomalies from thawing cosmic stri…
We discuss selected large-scale anomalies in the maps of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Specfically, these include alignments of the largest modes of CMB anisotropy with one another and with the geometry and…
Most of the analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background relies on the assumption of statistical isotropy. However, given some recent evidence pointing against isotropy, as for instance the observed alignment of different multipoles on large…
Several statistical anomalies in the CMB temperature anisotropies seem to defy the assumption of a homogeneous and isotropic universe. In particular, a dipole modulation has been detected both in WMAP and Planck data. We adapt the…
The leading candidate for the very early universe is described by a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. While the standard paradigm invokes a single slow-rolling field, many different models may be constructed which fit the…
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…
The observed power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is consistent with inflationary cosmology, which predicts a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum of quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field as they exit the Hubble…
We introduce a new technique to detect the discrete temperature steps that cosmic strings might have left in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy map. The technique provides a validity test on the pattern search of cosmic…
We provide an analytical expression for the trispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies induced by cosmic strings. Our result is derived for the small angular scales under the assumption that the…
Towards the end of the brane inflationary epoch in the brane world, cosmic strings (but not texture, domain walls or monopoles) are copiously produced during brane collision. These cosmic strings are D$p$-branes with $(p-1)$ dimensions…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have and will continue to revolutionize our understanding of cosmology. The recent discovery of the previously predicted acoustic peaks in the power spectrum has established a…
We argue that the lack of power exhibited by cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies at large angular scales might be linked to the onset of inflation. We highlight observational features and theoretical hints that support this view,…
We investigate a framework aiming to provide a common origin for the large-angle anomalies detected in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which are hypothesized as the result of the statistical inhomogeneity developed by different…
In the context of inflationary scenarios, the observed large angle anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature is believed to probe the primordial metric perturbations from inflation. Although the perturbations from…
The linear anisotropies in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and its polarization provide a clean picture of fluctuations in the universe some 370 kyr after the big bang. Simple physics connects these…
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy encodes a lot of information about our Universe. In this paper we take the ground-based CMB observations (GCMB), including the South Pole Telescope (SPT), SPTpol and the Atacama Cosmology…
Cosmic strings of the GUT scale, generically formed during the SSB of supersymmetric hybrid inflation, are compatible with the most recent CMB data. The strong constraints on the allowed cosmic strings contribution to the measured…
We present an in depth discussion of the production of gravitational waves from an inflationary phase that could have occurred in the early universe, giving derivations for the resulting spectrum and energy density. We also consider the…
Thermal inflation was proposed as a mechanism to dilute the density of cosmological moduli. Thermal inflation is driven by a complex scalar field possessing a large vacuum expectation value and a very flat potential, called a `flaton'. Such…
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 present a study of open inflation cosmological scenarios in which cosmic strings form betwen the two inflationary epochs. It is shown that in these models strings are stretched outside the horizon due to the inflationary expansion but…