Related papers: Primordial Non-Gaussianity
We investigate the effects of primordial non-Gaussianities in the primordial Universe on the baryonic structure formation process. By relating the cosmic star formation rate in Gaussian and non-Gaussian scenarios to the detectability of…
Since cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) and large-scale-structure (LSS) data will shortly improve dramatically with the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) and Planck Surveyor, and the Anglo-Australian 2-Degree Field (2dF) and Sloan Digital…
Primordial non-Gaussianity is a sensitive probe of the inflationary era, with a number of important theoretical targets living an order of magnitude beyond the reach of current CMB constraints. Maps of the large-scale structure of the…
The phases of the Fourier transform of any linear cosmological perturbation may be random (the Gaussian case) or not (the non-Gaussian case). If a non-Gaussian inhomogeneity was generated during the inflationary era by some process of very…
With the era of precision cosmology upon us, and upcoming surveys expected to further improve the precision of our observations below the percent level, ensuring the accuracy of our theoretical cosmological model is of the utmost…
The presence of non-Gaussian features in the CMB radiation maps represents one of the most long-awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation. These features could shed some light on the non trivial task…
I review the standard paradigm for understanding the formation and evolution of cosmic structure, based on the gravitational instability of dark matter, but many variations on this basic theme are viable. Despite the great progress that has…
After the precise observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum, attention is now being focused on the higher order statistics of the CMB anisotropies. Since linear evolution preserves the statistical…
An attractive and simple hypothesis for the formation of large-scale structure is that it developed by gravitational instability from primordial fluctuations with an initially Gaussian probability distribution. Non-linear gravitational…
Is gravitational growth responsible for the observed large scale structure in the universe? Do we need non-gaussian initial conditions or non-gravitational physics to explain the large scale features traced by galaxy surveys? I will briefly…
Galaxy redshift surveys, such as 2dF, SDSS, 6df, GAMA and VIPERS, have shown that the spatial distribution of matter forms a rich web, known as the cosmic web. The majority of galaxy survey analyses measure the amplitude of galaxy…
Probing the geometry of the universe is one of the most important endevours in cosmology. Current observational data from the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy (CMB), galaxy surveys and type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) strongly constrain…
As the quality of cosmological data continue to improve, it is natural to test the statistics of primordial fluctuations: are they Gaussian or non-Gaussian? I review a model which generates non-Gaussian adiabatic fluctuations from…
Thanks to the rapid progress in precision cosmology in the last few years, we now have access to physical observables that may constrain the theory of inflation through the non-Gaussianity (NG) signatures in the cosmic microwave background…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background represent a remarkable source of information for modern cosmology. Besides providing impressive support for the Big Bang model itself, they quantify the overall framework, or background, for…
The observation of primordial gravitational waves could provide a new and unique window on the earliest moments in the history of the universe, and on possible new physics at energies many orders of magnitude beyond those accessible at…
In this thesis, we show how the structure of the landscape potential of the primordial Universe may be probed through the primordial density perturbations responsible for the origin of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the…
We review the current standard model for the evolution of the Universe from an early inflationary epoch to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. We summarize and provide key references for the following topics: observations of the…
Reconstructing the initial conditions of the universe is a key problem in cosmology. Methods based on simulating the forward evolution of the universe have provided a way to infer initial conditions consistent with present-day observations.…
Cosmological measurements of the radiation density in the early universe can be used as a sensitive probe of physics beyond the standard model. Observations of primordial light element abundances have long been used to place non-trivial…