Related papers: The Cosmic Microwave Background
The inflationary and pre-inflationary evolution of scalar modes of cosmological perturbations in a closed universe is analyzed for a loop quantum cosmology model with an inflationary regime consistent with the constraints on inflation…
We historically trace various non-conventional explanations for the origin of the cosmic microwave background and discuss their merit, while analyzing the dynamics of their rejection, as well as the relevant physical and methodological…
A period of inflation in the early universe produces a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of gravitational waves over a huge range in wavelength. If the amplitude of this gravitational wave background is large enough to be detectable with…
The anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background are a gold mine for cosmology and fundamental physics. ESA's Planck satellite should soon extract all information from the temperature vein but will be limited concerning the measurement…
These lectures provide an introductory review of big bang cosmology. I discuss the expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, summarizing the observational evidence which has led to its adoption as the `standard' cosmological model and…
Inter alia, the high precision WMAP data on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation marginally indicate that the universe has positively curved (and hence spherical) spatial sections. In this paper, we take this data seriously and consider…
The study of anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is progressing at a phenomenal rate, both experimentally and theoretically. These anisotropies can teach us an enormous amount about the way that fluctuations were…
A basic modern picture of the universe is given here. The lectures start from the historical ideas of a static universe. Then I move on to Newtonian cosmology and derive the main cosmological equations in the framework of Newtonian…
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…
The first aim of this lecture is to highlight two areas of recent progress in inflationary cosmology, namely reheating and the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations. The second aim is to discuss important conceptual problems for the…
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 review the physical processes that are thought to produce anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, focusing primarily (but not exclusively) on the effects of acoustic waves in the early Universe. We attempt throughout to supply an…
Inflation as the leading paradigm depicting the very early universe physics could leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Using currently available CMB observations, we give the tightest constraints on inflation…
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 theory of cosmological fluctuations assumes that the pre-inflationary state of the universe was the quantum vacuum of a scalar field(s) coupled to gravity. The observed cosmic microwave background fluctuations are then interpreted as…
Long-wavelength gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background. Distinguishing this from anisotropy induced by energy density fluctuations is critical for testing inflationary cosmology…
The most direct probe of non-Gaussian initial conditions has come from bispectrum measurements of temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background and of the matter and galaxy distribution at large scales. Such bispectrum…
This is a short article on inflation, the geometry of the Universe, and the cosmic microwave background that appeared as a Perspective in Science magazine.
We have independently measured the genus topology of the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background seen by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). A genus analysis of the WMAP data indicates consistency with…
The study of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization is still in a pioneering stage, but promises to bring a huge advancement in cosmology in the near future, just as high-accuracy observations of the anisotropies in the total…