Related papers: Correlating CMB Spectral Distortions with Temperat…
Following the pioneering observations with COBE in the early 1990s, studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have focused on temperature and polarization anisotropies. CMB spectral distortions - tiny departures of the CMB energy…
Thermal inflation is a second epoch of exponential expansion at typical energy scales $V^{1/4} \sim 10^{6 \sim 8} \mathrm{GeV}$. If the usual primordial inflation is followed by thermal inflation, the primordial power spectrum is only…
Prior to recombination, Silk damping causes the dissipation of energy from acoustic waves into the monopole of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), resulting in spectral distortions. These can be used to probe the primordial scalar power…
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…
Forthcoming missions probing the absolute intensity of the CMB are expected to be able to measure spectral distortions, which are deviations from its blackbody distribution. As cosmic inflation can induce spectral distortions, these…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy may result from both scalar and tensor perturbations. For a sufficiently narrow range of angular scales, CMB perturbations can be characterized by four parameters. Results from the Cosmic…
Observations of the polarization of the cosmic microwave backround (CMB) have the potential to place much tighter constraints on cosmological parameters than observations of the fluctuations in temperature alone. We discuss using CMB…
Single field inflationary models that seek to greatly enhance small scale power in order to form primordial black holes predict both a squeezed bispectrum that is enhanced by this small scale power and a potentially detectable enhancement…
We study the imprints of anisotropic inflation on the CMB temperature fluctuations and polarizations. The statistical anisotropy stems not only from the direction dependence of curvature and tensor perturbations, but also from the cross…
We discuss ability of the harmonic pattern of peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum to test inflation. By studying robust features of alternate models, which must all be isocurvature in nature, we reveal signatures unique to inflation.…
Recent released WMAP data show a low value of quadrupole in the CMB temperature fluctuations, which confirms the early observations by COBE. In this paper, a scenario, in which a contracting phase is followed by an inflationary phase, is…
We predict the imprint of linear bubbly perturbations on the polarization and temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We analytically model a bubbly density perturbation at the beginning of the radiation dominated…
The prediction of a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of curvature and tensor fluctuations is among the main features of cosmic inflation. The current measurements of the primordial fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
We study the auto-correlation function of CMB polarization anisotropies and their cross correlation with temperature fluctuations as probe of the causal structure of the universe. Because polarization is generated at the last scattering…
Measuring spectral distortions (SDs) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) will provide new constraints on previously unexplored scales of the primordial power spectrum, allowing us to extend the probed parameter space by several orders…
Quantum fluctuations during inflation may be responsible for temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations of CMB anisotropies can be used to falsify many currently popular models. In this paper we discuss…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature are being studied with ever increasing precision. Two competing types of theories might describe the origins of these fluctuations: ``inflation'' and ``defects''. Here we…
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies that result from quantum fluctuations during inflation are explored and the impact of their ``cosmic variance'' on the ability to use existing data to probe inflationary models is studied. We…