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We have estimated the CMB variance from the three-year WMAP data, finding a value which is significantly lower than the one expected from Gaussian simulations using the WMAP best-fit cosmological model, at a significance level of 98.7 per…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power on the largest angular scales observed both by WMAP and COBE DMR appears to be lower than the one predicted by the standard model of cosmology with almost scale free primordial…
We test the statistical isotropy of the universe by analyzing the distribution of WISE extragalactic sources that were also observed by 2MASS. We pay particular attention to color cuts and foreground marginalization in order to cull a…
The standard method for observationally confirming the existence of a predicted finite topology of the universe involves searching for the repetition of the same finite or extended source in different directions. However, serious problems…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is an abundant source of cosmological information. However, this information is encoded in non-trivial ways in a signal that is difficult to observe. The resulting challenges in extracting this…
We develop a new method of extracting simultaneous measurements of weak lensing shear and a local rotation of the plane of polarization using observations of resolved radio sources. We show that the direction of polarization is…
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) is an invaluable probe of the conditions of the early universe. Recent measurements of its spatial anisotropy have allowed accurate determinations of several fundamental cosmological…
The cosmological principle, asserting large-scale homogeneity and isotropy, underpins the standard model of cosmology. Testing its validity using independent astronomical probes remains crucial for understanding the global structure of the…
I discuss whether the standard cosmological models fit the WMAP data well enough to justify parameter estimation with standard assumptions. The observed quadrupole is low (but has significant foreground uncertainty) and drives weak evidence…
The statistical analysis of the soon to come Planck satellite CMB data will help set tighter bounds on major cosmological parameters. On the way, a number of practical difficulties need to be tackled, notably that several other…
We investigate the correlation of gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with several tracers of large-scale structure, including luminous red galaxies (LRGs), quasars, and radio sources. The lensing field is…
We measure the angular bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation anisotropy from the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) four-year sky maps. The angular bispectrum is the harmonic transform of the three-point…
The ratio between the CMB lensing/galaxy counts and the galaxy shear/galaxy counts cross-correlations combines the information from different cosmological probes to infer cosmographic measurements that are less dependent on astrophysical…
The statistical uncertainty in measuring the primordial density perturbations on a given comoving scale is dictated by the number of independent regions of that scale that are accessible to an observer. This number varies with cosmic time…
Voyage 2050 White Paper highlighting the unique science opportunities using spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). CMB spectral distortions probe many processes throughout the history of the Universe. Precision…
QSOs and radio-galaxies, together with the CMB, ``normal'' galaxies and clusters, represent the main source of information about the origin and evolution of the Large Scale Structure. They can be used either directly, as tracers of the…
We consider the issue of hemispherical power asymmetry in the three-year WMAP data, adopting a previously introduced modulation framework. Computing both frequentist probabilities and Bayesian evidences, we find that the model consisiting…
A new method for removing point radio sources and other non-Gaussian noise is proposed as a means of improving the accuracy of estimates of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The main idea of the method is…
We consider several factors concerning the design of observing strategies in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy experiments. First we consider the number of independent points on the sky one should observe given a fixed observing…
We present properties of the peaks (maxima) of the CMB anisotropies expected in flat and open CDM models. We obtain analytical expressions of several topological descriptors: mean number of maxima and the probability distribution of the…