Related papers: Preferred axis in cosmology
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…
Recent Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data confirm the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) quadrupole anomaly. We further elaborate our previous proposal that the quadrupole power can be naturally suppressed in axis-symmetric…
I propose a mechanism that would explain the near alignment of the low order multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This mechanism supposes a large-scale cosmic magnetic field that tends to align the cyclotron orbit axes of…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies probe the primordial density field at the edge of the observable Universe. There is a limiting precision (``cosmic variance'') with which anisotropies can determine the amplitude of primordial…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy is our richest source of cosmological information; the standard cosmological model was largely established thanks to study of the temperature anisotropies. By the end of the decade, the Planck…
We examine all-sky cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps on large angular scales to compare their consistency with two scenarios: the standard inflationary quantum picture, and a distribution constrained to have a universal…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a relic radiation of the Big Bang and as such it contains a wealth of cosmological information. Statistical analyses of the CMB, in conjunction with other cosmological observables, represent some of…
In the standard framework of cosmology, primordial density fluctuations are assumed to have an isotropic Gaussian distribution. We search for deviations from this assumption in the WMAP data for the low $l$ modes of Cosmic Microwave…
We perform detailed calculations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in a CDM-dominated open universe with primordial adiabatic density perturbations for a variety of reionization histories. We show that to a great extent, the…
Significant alignment and signed-intensity anomalies of local features of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are detected on the three-year WMAP data, through a decomposition of the signal with steerable wavelets on the sphere. Firstly,…
We review the recently found large-scale anomalies in the maps of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. These include alignments of the largest modes of CMB anisotropy with each other and with geometry and direction…
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) is an invaluable probe of the conditions of the early universe. Recent measurements of its spatial anisotropy have allowed accurate determinations of several fundamental cosmological…
Several anomalies appear to be present in the large-angle cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy maps of WMAP, including the alignment of large-scale multipoles. Models in which isotropy is spontaneously broken (e.g., by a scalar…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) traveled the cosmos long before it reached our telescopes today. Consequently, it is one of the best probes of fundamental processes in the early Universe that we could hope to observe. The cosmological…
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…
This is a course on cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in the standard cosmological model, designed for beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduates. ``Standard cosmological model'' in this context means a Universe…
This paper reviews the application of a novel methodology for analysing the isotropy of the universe by probing the alignment of local structures in the CMB. The strength of the proposed methodology relies on the steerable wavelet filtering…
Suggestions have been made that the microwave background observed by COBE and WMAP and dubbed Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) may have an origin within our own Galaxy or Earth. To consider the signal that may be correlated with Earth, a…
The motion of the solar system barycenter with respect to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) induces a very large apparent dipole component into the CMB brightness map at the 3 mK level. In this Letter we discuss another kinematic effect…
In the near future, observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies will provide accurate determinations of many fundamental cosmological parameters. In this paper, we analyse degeneracies among cosmological parameters to…