Related papers: Axion Dark Matter Induced Cosmic Microwave Backgro…
Cosmological birefringence, a rotation by an angle $\alpha$ of the polarization of photons as they propagate over cosmological distances, is constrained by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to be $|\alpha|\lesssim1^\circ$ ($1\sigma$)…
An axion rotating in field space can produce dark photons in the early universe via tachyonic instability. This explosive particle production creates a background of stochastic gravitational waves that may be visible at pulsar timing arrays…
Relativistic axions are good candidates for the dark radiation for which there are mounting observational hints. The primordial decays of heavy fields produce axions which are ultra-energetic compared to thermalised matter and inelastic…
Baryon-density perturbations of large amplitude may exist if they are compensated by dark-matter perturbations so that the total density remains unchanged. Big-bang nucleosynthesis and galaxy clusters allow the amplitudes of these…
We revisit the evidence for CMB birefringence in the context of a rich Axiverse. Using probability density functions (PDFs) for various axion parameters, such as the mass and axion decay constant, we construct the PDF for the cosmic…
In this paper, I investigate a local effect of polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in clusters of galaxies, due to the Thomson scattering of the anisotropic radiation. A local anisotropy of the CMB is produced by some…
The intervening large--scale structure distorts cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies via gravitational lensing. The same large--scale structure, traced by dusty star--forming galaxies, also induces anisotropies in the…
Bulk motions of electrons along the line of sight induce secondary temperature fluctuations in the post-decoupling, reionized universe. In the presence of a magnetic field not only the scalar mode but also the vector mode act as a source…
Parity violating extensions of the standard electromagnetic theory cause in vacuo rotation of the plane of polarization of propagating photons. This effect, also known as cosmic birefringence, impacts the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
The linear polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is highly sensitive to parity-violating physics at the surface of last scattering, which might cause mixing of E and B modes, an effect known as {\it cosmic birefringence}.…
We study axion strings of hyperlight axions coupled to photons. Hyperlight axions -- axions lighter than Hubble at recombination -- are a generic prediction of the string axiverse. These axions strings produce a distinct quantized…
We point out that the rotation angle $\beta$ of cosmic birefringence, which is a recently reported parity-violating signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), has a phase ambiguity of $n\pi \,(n\in\mathbb{Z})$. This ambiguity has a…
Primordial decays of string theory moduli at z \sim 10^{12} naturally generate a dark radiation Cosmic Axion Background (CAB) with 0.1 - 1 keV energies. This CAB can be detected through axion-photon conversion in astrophysical magnetic…
We revisit the cosmological constraints on resonant and non-resonant conversion of photons to axions in the cosmological magnetic fields. We find that the constraints on photon-axion coupling and primordial magnetic fields are much weaker…
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…
Axions and dark photons are common in many extensions of the Standard Model. The dark axion portal -- an axion coupling to the dark photon and photon -- can significantly modify their phenomenology. We study the cosmological constraints on…
We study the effect of weak lensing by cosmic (super-)strings on the anisotropies of cosmic microwave background (CMB). In developing a method to calculate the lensing convergence field due to strings, and thereby temperature and…
We discuss the non-Gaussian contribution to the power spectrum covariance of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies resulting through weak gravitational lensing angular deflections and the correlation of deflections with secondary…
A conventional explanation of the dipole anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is in terms of the Doppler effect: our galaxy is moving with respect to CMB frame with $ \sim 600 ~ km ~ s^{-1} $. However, as the deep…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) physics can be used to constrain the dark energy dynamics: B modes of the polarization of the diffuse CMB emission as well as the polarized signal towards clusters of galaxies are sensitive to the…