Related papers: Primordial Nucleosynthesis in the New Cosmology
We derive constraints on the injection of free-streaming dark radiation after big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) by considering the decay of a massive hidden sector particle into dark radiation. Such a scenario has the potential to alleviate…
We review the status of neutrino mass constraints obtained from cosmological observations, with a particular focus on the results derived considering Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data by various experiments (Planck, ACT and SPT),…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a relic radiation of the Big Bang and as such it contains a wealth of cosmological information. Statistical analyses of the CMB, in conjunction with other cosmological observables, represent some of…
The primordial abundance of $^4$He plays a central role in big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The LBT $Y_{\rm p}$ Project's new measurement of the primordial $^4$He mass fraction $Y_{\rm p} =0.2458…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations suggest the possibility of an extra dark radiation component, while the current evidence from big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is more ambiguous. Dark radiation from a decaying particle can…
We examine the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy for signatures of early quintessence dark energy -- a non-negligible quintessence energy density during the recombination and structure formation eras. In contrast to a…
The ten's of micro-Kelvin variations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation across the sky encode a wealth of information about the Universe. The full-sky, high-resolution maps of the CMB that will be made in…
A massive long-lived tau neutrino in the MeV regime modifies the primordial light-element abundances predicted by big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) calculations. This effect has been used to derive limits on the tau neutrino mass. Because…
The search for primordial gravitational waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) will soon be limited by our ability to remove the lensing contamination to $B$-mode polarization. The often-used quadratic estimator for lensing is known…
The key Standard-Physics inputs of the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) are the light nuclei reaction rates. Both the network and the nuclear rates have been recently reanalyzed and updated, and cosmological and New-Physics constraints…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), especially of its frequency spectrum and its anisotropies, both in temperature and in polarization, have played a key role in the development of modern cosmology and our understanding…
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…
Big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) probes the cosmic mass-energy density at temperatures $\sim 10$ MeV to $\sim 100$ keV. Here, we consider the effect of a cosmic matter-like species that is non-relativistic and pressureless during BBN. Such a…
Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) represents one of the earliest phenomena that can lead to observational constraints on the early Universe properties. It is well-known that many important mechanisms and phase transitions occurred before BBN.…
The increasing precision of cosmological datasets is opening up new opportunities to test predictions from cosmic inflation. Here we study the impact of high precision constraints on the primordial power spectrum and show how a new…
Future cosmological measurements should enable the sum of neutrino masses to be determined indirectly through their effects on the expansion rate of the Universe and the clustering of matter. We consider prospects for the gravitationally…
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…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy (spatial inhomogeneity) data provide the tightest constraints on the Hubble constant, matter density, spatial curvature, and dark energy dynamics. Other data, sensitive to the evolution of only…
The existence of the cosmic neutrino background (CnuB) is a fundamental prediction of the standard Big Bang cosmology. Although current cosmological probes provide indirect observational evidence, the direct detection of the CnuB in a…
Following the pioneering observations with COBE in the early 1990s, studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have focused on temperature and polarization anisotropies. CMB spectral distortions - tiny departures of the CMB energy…