Related papers: Distortions in the Surface of Last Scattering
If the universe is finite and smaller than the distance to the surface of last scatter, then the signature of the topology of the universe is writ large on the microwave background sky. We show that the microwave background will be…
If the universe is finite and smaller than the distance to the surface of last scatter, then the signature of the topology of the universe is writ on the microwave background sky. Previous efforts to search for this topology have focused on…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations effectively measure the basic properties of the universe during the recombination epoch. CMB measurements fix the distance to the surface of last scatter, the sound horizon of the…
Neutrinos decoupled from the rest of the cosmic plasma when the Universe was less than one second old, far earlier than the photons which decoupled at t=380,000 years. Surprisingly, though, the last scattering surface of the neutrinos is…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation will have a distribution of singularities and anti-singularities, points where the polarization vanishes for topological reasons. The statistics of polarization singularities…
We present a pedagogical and phenomenological introduction to the study of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization to build intuition about the prospects and challenges facing its detection. Thomson scattering of temperature…
A topologically finite universe, smaller than the observable horizon, will have circles-in-the-sky: pairs of circles around which the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background are correlated. The circles occur along the…
Gravitational fluctuations along the line-of-sight from the surface of last scatter to the observer distort the microwave background in several related ways: The fluctuations deflect the photon path (gravitational lensing), the decay of the…
The theoretical basis for the prediction of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background is very well developed. Very low amplitude density and temperature perturbations produce small gravitational effects, leading to an anisotropy that…
Mechanisms have been proposed that might rotate the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as it propagates from the surface of last scatter. In the simplest scenario, the rotation will be uniform across the sky, but…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies probe the primordial density field at the edge of the observable Universe. There is a limiting precision (``cosmic variance'') with which anisotropies can determine the amplitude of primordial…
The work is devoted to the investigations of possible observational manifestations of protoobjects related to "dark ages" epoch (10 < z < 1000), before formation of self-luminous galaxies and stars. These objects can distort the cosmic…
We consider scattering of a plane electromagnetic wave by a wormhole. It is found that the scattered wave is partially depolarized and has a specific interference picture depending on parameters of the wormhole and the distance to the…
When a cosmic microwave background (CMB) photon travels from the surface of last scatter through spacetime metric perturbations, the polarization vector may rotate about its direction of propagation. This gravitational rotation is distinct…
The Milky Way can act as a large-scale weak gravitational lens of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We study this effect using a photon ray-tracing code and a Galactic mass distribution with disk, bulge and halo components. For an…
The ratio of the self-gravitational energy density of the scattering particles in the universe to the energy density of the scattered photons in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the same in any volume of space. These two energy…
Gravitational radiation that propagates through an inhomogeneous mass distribution is subject to random gravitational lensing, or scattering, causing variations in the wave amplitude and temporal smearing of the signal. A statistical theory…
Diffractive and refractive magnetospheric scintillations may allow a direct testing of the plasma inside the light cylinder. Unusual electrodynamics of the strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma allow separation of the magnetospheric…
If the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is rotated in a frequency-independent manner as it propagates from the surface of last scatter, it may introduce a B-mode polarization. Here I show that measurement of…
This paper presents the analysis and characterization of the surface scattering process for both specular and diffused components. The study is focused on the investigation of various building materials each having a different roughness, at…