Related papers: Is there another coincidence problem at the reioni…
The observation of space-time variations in fundamental constants would provide strong evidence for the existence of new light degrees of freedom in the theory of Nature. Robustly constraining such scenarios requires exploiting observations…
We perform an analysis of the recent WMAP7 data considering physically motivated and viable reionization scenarios with the aim of assessing their effects on cosmological parameter determinations. The main novelties are: (i) the combination…
We explore the constraints on the history of reionization from Planck 2015 Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data and we derive the forecasts for future CMB observations. We consider a class of monotonic histories of reionization as…
The lecture is devoted to the comparison of a few models of cosmic recombination kinetics with recent CMB anisotropy data and to corresponding predictions for the upcoming PLANCK mission. The influence of additional sources of ionized…
We combine observational data on a dozen independent cosmic properties at high-$z$ with the information on reionization drawn from the spectra of distant luminous sources and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain the…
Cosmology and particle physics are deeply interrelated. Among the common problems are dark energy, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We discuss these problems in general terms, and concentrate on several particular…
We compare the results from several sets of cosmological simulations of cosmic reionization, produced under Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project, with existing observational data on the high-redshift Ly-alpha forest and the…
A new bound dark energy, BDE, cosmology has been proposed where the dark energy is the binding energy between light meson fields that condense a few tens of years after the big bang. It is reported that the correct dark energy density…
We derive a constraint on patchy screening of the cosmic microwave background from inhomogeneous reionization, using off-diagonal TB and TT correlations in WMAP-7 temperature/polarization data. We interpret this as a constraint on the rms…
We present updated constraints on the variation of the fine structure constant, $\alpha_{\rm EM}$, and effective electron rest mass, $m_{\rm e}$, during the cosmological recombination era. These two fundamental constants directly affect the…
The statistical properties of the primordial perturbations contain clues about the origins of those fluctuations. Although the Planck collaboration has recently obtained tight constraints on primordial non-gaussianity from cosmic microwave…
By allowing for non zero vacuum expectation values for some of the fields that appear in the Hamiltonian constraint of canonical general relativity a time variable, with usual properties, can be identified; the constraint plays the role of…
We show that by jointly fitting cosmic microwave background (CMB) and astrophysical data - a compilation of UV luminosity data from the Hubble Frontier Field and neutral hydrogen data from distant sources-, we can infer on the shape of the…
There is currently a discrepancy in the measured value of the amplitude of matter clustering, parameterised using $\sigma_8$, inferred from galaxy weak lensing, and cosmic microwave background data, which could be an indication of new…
The time variation of fundamental mass scales can have profound cosmological implications. We investigate a particular model of crossover quintessence which is compatible with all present cosmological observations. This model can also…
I use simulations of cosmological reionization to quantify the effect of photoionization on the gas fraction in low mass objects, in particular the characteristic mass scale below which the gas fraction is reduced compared to the universal…
We present constraints on the reionization optical depth, $\tau$, obtained using several independent methods. First, we perform a non-parametric reconstruction of the reionization history, using Lyman-$\alpha$ constraints on the evolution…
Dark matter in the cosmological concordance model is parameterised by a single number, describing the covariantly conserved energy density of a non-relativistic fluid. Here we test this assumption in a model-independent and conservative way…
We use fully self-consistent numerical simulations of cosmic reionization, completed under the Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project, to explore how well the recombinations in the ionized IGM can be quantified by the effective…
There is a deep cosmological mystery: although dependent on very different underlying physics, the timescales of structure formation, of galaxy cooling (both radiatively and against the CMB), and of vacuum domination do not differ by many…