Related papers: Power Spectrum Normalisation and the Non-Gaussian …
[Abridged]: A detection or nondetection of primordial non-Gaussianity by using the CMB data is crucial not only to discriminate inflationary models but also to test alternative scenarios. Non-Gaussianity offers, therefore, a powerful probe…
Observations of the microwave background fluctuations suggest a scale-dependent amplitude asymmetry of roughly 2.5 sigma significance. Inflationary explanations for this 'anomaly' require non-Gaussian fluctuations which couple observable…
We measure the matter power spectrum from the Lyman-alpha forest of 31 quasar spectra spanning the redshift range of 1.6-3.6. The optical depth, $\tau$, for absorption of the intergalactic medium is obtained from the flux using the…
Measuring the distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is a crucial test of the Lambda CDM model, providing constraints on the nature of dark matter. Recent work investigating mass distributions of individual galaxy clusters using…
Modified Gravity (MG) scenarios have been advocated to account for the dark energy phenomenon in the universe. These models predict departures from General Relativity on large cosmic scales that can be tested through a variety of probes…
We compare various physically different measurements of linear matter density perturbation amplitude, $sigma_8$, which are obtained from the observations of CMB anisotropy, galaxy cluster mass function, weak gravitation lensing, matter…
We present a method to measure the small-scale matter power spectrum using high-resolution measurements of the gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). To determine whether small-scale structure today is suppressed on…
We extend the general relativistic description of galaxy clustering developed in Yoo, Fitzpatrick, and Zaldarriaga (2009). For the first time we provide a fully general relativistic description of the observed matter power spectrum and the…
We extend to large scales a method proposed in previous work that reconstructs non-parametrically the primordial power spectrum from cosmic microwave background data at high resolution. The improvement is necessary to account for the…
Applying a transformation to a non-Gaussian field can enhance the information content of the resulting power spectrum, by reducing the correlations between Fourier modes. In the context of weak gravitational lensing, it has been shown that…
(shortened) We develop and test a method to compute mass and auto-correlation functions of rich clusters of galaxies from linear density fluctuations, based on the formalism of Gaussian peaks (Bardeen et al 1986). The essential, new…
The likelihood function is a crucial element of parameter estimation. In analyses of galaxy overdensities and weak lensing shear, one often approximates the likelihood of the power spectrum with a Gaussian distribution. The posterior…
The detection of non-Gaussianity in the CMB data would rule out a number of inflationary models. A null detection of non-Gaussianity, instead, would exclude alternative models for the early universe. Thus, a detection or non-detection of…
We illustrate how recently improved low-redshift cosmological measurements can tighten constraints on neutrino properties. In particular we examine the impact of the assumed cosmological model on the constraints. We first consider the new…
We present methods to rigorously extract parameter combinations that are constrained by data from posterior distributions. The standard approach uses linear methods that apply to Gaussian distributions. We show the limitations of the linear…
Modified matter power spectra with approximately Gaussian bump on sub-Mpc scales can be a result of a complex inflation. We consider five spectra with different Gaussian amplitudes $A$ and locations $k_0$ and run N-body simulations in a…
The power spectrum of mass density fluctuations is evaluated from the Mark III and the SFI catalogs of peculiar velocities by a maximum likelihood analysis, using parametric models for the power spectrum and for the errors. The applications…
We explore a systematic approach to the analysis of primordial non-Gaussianity using fluctuations in temperature and polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Following Munshi & Heavens (2009), we define a set of power-spectra…
We report a detection of the coherent distortion of faint galaxies arising from gravitational lensing by foreground structures. This ``cosmic shear'' is potentially the most direct measure of the mass power spectrum, as it is unaffected by…
The lensing power spectrum from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps will be measured with unprecedented precision with upcoming experiments, including upgrades to ACT and SPT. Achieving significant improvements in…