Related papers: Isocurvature initial conditions for second order B…
In this thesis, we discuss several instances in which non-linear behaviour affects cosmological evolution in the early Universe. We begin by reviewing the standard cosmological model and the tools used to understand it theoretically and to…
Non-linear effects in the early Universe generate non-zero bispectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization, even in the absence of primordial non-Gaussianity. In this paper, we compute the contributions from…
We present a general formalism that provides a systematic computation of the linear and non-linear perturbations for an arbitrary number of cosmological fluids in the early Universe going through various transitions, in particular the decay…
We present the computation of the full system of Boltzmann equations at second-order describing the evolution of the photon, baryon and cold dark matter fluids. These equations allow to follow the time evolution of the Cosmic Microwave…
We consider a perfectly homogeneous and isotropic universe which undergoes a sudden phase transition. If the transition produces topological defects, which we assume, perturbations in the geometry and the cosmic fluid also suddenly appear.…
We consider the most general primordial cosmological perturbation in a universe filled with photons, baryons, neutrinos, and a hypothetical cold dark matter (CDM) component within the framework of linearized perturbation theory. We give a…
We present a systematic treatment of the initial conditions and evolution of cosmological perturbations in a universe containing photons, baryons, neutrinos, cold dark matter, and a scalar quintessence field. By formulating the evolution in…
We consider general mixtures of isocurvature and adiabatic cosmological perturbations. With a minimal assumption set consisting of the linearized Einstein equations and a primordial perfect fluid we derive the second-order action and its…
We present the first computation of the cosmological perturbations generated during inflation up to second order in deviations from the homogeneous background solution. Our results, which fully account for the inflaton self-interactions as…
We present posterior likelihoods and Bayesian model selection analysis for generalized cosmological models where the primordial perturbations include correlated adiabatic and cold dark matter isocurvature components. We perform nested…
Gauge-invariant treatments of the second-order cosmological perturbation in a four dimensional homogeneous isotropic universe are formulated without any gauge fixing. We have derived the Einstein equations in the case of the single perfect…
We investigate new shapes of local primordial non-Gaussianities in the CMB. Allowing for a primordial isocurvature mode along with the main adiabatic one, the angular bispectrum is in general a superposition of six distinct shapes: the…
Prospects for testing the adiabaticity of the primordial cosmological perturbations using MAP and PLANCK are evaluated. The most general cosmological perturbation in a universe with just baryons, photons, neutrinos, and a cold dark matter…
We present a new approach to gauge-invariant cosmological perturbations at second order, which is also covariant. We examine two cases in particular for a dust Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker model of any curvature: we investigate…
Recent cosmological observations, including measurements of the CMB anisotropy and the primordial helium abundance, indicate the existence of an extra radiation component in the Universe beyond the standard three neutrino species. In this…
These lecture notes present the computation of the full system of Boltzmann equations describing the evolution of the photon, baryon and cold dark matter fluids up to second order in perturbation theory, as recently studied in (Bartolo,…
The damping of primordial perturbations at small scales gives rise to distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Here, the dependence of the distortion on the different types of cosmological initial conditions is explored,…
We use gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory to calculate the displacement field that sets the initial conditions for $N$-body simulations. Using first and second-order fully relativistic perturbation theory in the…
Since a positive future detection of non-linearity in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy pattern might allow to descriminate among different mechanisms giving rise to cosmological adiabatic perturbations, we study the evolution of…
Low energy effective field theories motivated by string theory will likely contain several scalar moduli fields which will be relevant to early Universe cosmology. Some of these fields are expected to couple with non-standard kinetic terms…