Related papers: In Support of Inflation
The presence of non--Gaussian features in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps represents one of the most long--awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation, still needing confirmation.…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
It is well known that observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are highly sensitive to the spatial curvature of the Universe, k. Here we find that what is in fact being tightly constrained by small angle fluctuations is spatial…
A self-consistent modular cosmology scenario and its testability in view of future CMB experiments are discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the enhanced symmetric points in moduli space which play crucial roles in our scenario. The…
A rapid phase of accelerated expansion in the early universe, known as inflation, dilutes all matter except the vacuum induced quantum fluctuations. These are responsible for seeding the initial perturbations in the baryonic matter, the…
We investigate a framework aiming to provide a common origin for the large-angle anomalies detected in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which are hypothesized as the result of the statistical inhomogeneity developed by different…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
A complete numerical calculation of the temperature anisotropies and the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is presented for a non zero cross correlation of a stochastic magnetic field with the primordial curvature…
The past, present and future of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy research is discussed, with emphasis on the Boomerang and Maxima balloon experiments. These data are combined with large scale structure (LSS) information and high…
Ongoing observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background, such as the MAXIMA and BOOMERanG projects, are providing datasets of unprecedented quality and ever-increasing size. Exact analysis of the data they produce is a serious computational…
The delensing of cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps will be increasingly valuable for extracting as much information as possible from future CMB surveys. Delensing provides many general benefits, including sharpening of the acoustic…
Boomerang, Maxima, DASI, CBI and VSA significantly increase the case for accelerated expansion in the early universe (the inflationary paradigm) and at the current epoch (dark energy dominance), especially when combined with data on high…
The cosmic microwave background is now fulfilling its promise of determining the basic cosmological parameters describing our Universe. Future study of the microwave background will mostly be directed towards two basic questions: a complete…
We review the present status of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy observations and discuss the main related astrophysical issues, instrumental effects and data analysis techniques. We summarise the balloon-borne and ground-based…
We develop and examine the principles governing the formation of distortions in the cosmic microwave background. Distortions in the frequency or spectral distribution of the background probe the thermal history of the universe whereas those…
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…
One of the major predictions of inflation is the existence of a stochastic background of cosmological gravitational waves (GW). These gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background…
We describe the subject of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) analysis - its past, present and future. The theory of Gaussian primary anisotropies, those arising from linear physics operating in the early Universe, is in reasonably good…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation lensing is a promising tool to study the physics of early universe. In this work we probe the imprints of deviations from isotropy and scale invariance of primordial curvature perturbation…
This white paper addresses key challenges for the design of next-decade Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments, and for assessing their capability to extract cosmological information from CMB polarization. We focus here on the…