Related papers: Cosmic Microwave Background constraints for global…
The predictions of the inflationary LCDM paradigm match today's high-precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy extremely well. The same data put tight limits on other sources of anisotropy. Cosmic strings are a…
Recent Planck measurements show some CMB anomalies on large angular scales, which confirms the early observations by WMAP. We show that an inflationary model, in which before the slow-roll inflation the Universe is in a superinflationary…
Planck data have been used to provide stringent new constraints on cosmic strings and other defects. We describe forecasts of the CMB power spectrum induced by cosmic strings, calculating these from network models and simulations using…
We present the first complete Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis of cosmological models with evolving cosmic (super)string networks, using the unconnected segment model in the unequal-time correlator formalism. For ordinary cosmic string…
Cross-correlating the lensing signals of galaxies and comic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations is expected to provide valuable cosmological information. In particular it may help tighten constraints on parameters describing the…
The Cosmological Principle assumes a statistically isotropic Universe, but the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) exhibits some anomalous statistical features, such as the hemispherical power asymmetry, that challenge this core assumption.…
Non-Gaussianity in the inflationary perturbations can couple observable scales to modes of much longer wavelength (even superhorizon), leaving as a signature a large-angle modulation of the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) power…
We investigate the contribution of cosmic string loops to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. This is done by extending the Unconnected Segment Model (USM) to include the contribution of the cosmic string loops created…
We compute cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy constraints on exotic forms of energy injection in electromagnetic (e.m.) channels over a large range of timescales. These constraints are very powerful around or just after…
Many early universe scenarios predict post-inflationary tensor perturbations from causality-limited, sub-horizon sources. While the microphysical details may differ, as long as these sources are bounded in duration and correlation length,…
If they exist, networks of superconducting cosmic strings are capable of injecting copious amounts of electromagnetic energy into the background over a broad range of frequencies. We study this injection both analytically, as well as…
Cosmic string loops contain cusps which decay by emitting bursts of particles. A significant fraction of the released energy is in the form of photons. These photons are injected non-thermally and can hence cause spectral distortions of the…
We present robust constraints on the stochastic gravitational waves (GWs) at Mpc scales from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. CMB constraints on GWs are usually characterized as the tensor-to-scalar ratio, assuming specifically a…
We present the first calculation of the bispectrum of the matter perturbations induced by cosmic strings. The calculation is performed in two different ways: the first uses the unequal time correlators (UETCs) of the string network -…
We analyse the large-scale coherence of the CMB anisotropy field with non-gaussian initial conditions usind 2-point function of the power fluctuations in the wavelet space. Employing the multivariate Edgeworth expansion (MEE) we constrain…
We simulate the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) induced by cosmic strings. By numerically evolving a network of cosmic strings we generate full-sky CMB temperature anisotropy maps. Based on $192$ maps, we compute the…
We propose signals in the cosmic microwave background to probe the type and spectrum of neutrino masses. In theories that have spontaneous breaking of approximate lepton flavor symmetries at or below the weak scale, light pseudo-Goldstone…
We compare the predictions of hybrid inflationary models that produce both adiabatic fluctuations and topological defects to first year WMAP results. We use a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to constrain the contribution of cosmic strings…
We point out that the inclusion of a string component contributing around 5% to the CMB power spectrum amplitude on large scales can increase the preferred value of the spectral index n_s of density fluctuations measured by CMB experiments.…
We study the effect of weak lensing by cosmic (super-)strings on the higher-order statistics of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). A cosmic string segment is expected to cause weak lensing as well as an integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW)…