Related papers: Mapping the ionizing sources with CMB polarization…
We impose constraints on the topology of the Universe determined from a search for matched circles in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy patterns of the 7-year WMAP data. We pay special attention to the sensitivity…
Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys will soon make the first detection of the polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the linear polarization generated by the scattering of CMB photons on the free electrons present in collapsed…
Spectroscopic studies of high-redshift objects and increasingly precise data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are beginning to independently place strong complementary bounds on the epoch of hydrogen reionization. Parameter…
The recent discovery of a Gunn--Peterson (GP) trough in the spectrum of the redshift 6.28 SDSS quasar has raised the tantalizing possibility that we have detected the reionization of the universe. However, a neutral fraction (of hydrogen)…
We present proof of principle for a two way interplay between physics at very early Universe and late time observations. We find a relation between primordial mechanisms responsible for large scale power suppression in the primordial power…
We review the observable consequences of the epoch of reionization (EoR) on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and the resulting constraints on the EoR. We discuss how Thomson scattering with the free electrons produced during EoR…
The CMB temperature power spectrum offers ambiguous evidence for the existence of horizon-scale power in the primordial power spectrum due to uncertainties in spatial curvature and the physics of cosmic acceleration as well as the observed…
We show that by jointly fitting cosmic microwave background (CMB) and astrophysical data - a compilation of UV luminosity data from the Hubble Frontier Field and neutral hydrogen data from distant sources-, we can infer on the shape of the…
The epoch of reionisation is a key phase in cosmic history, characterised by the ionisation of the intergalactic medium by the first luminous sources. In this work, we constrain the reionisation history of the Universe using data from the…
The precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background power spectrum put a strong constraint on the dark matter annihilation cross section since the electromagnetic energy injection by the dark matter annihilation affects the…
We derive updated Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraints on annihilating dark matter, and present forecasts for upcoming CMB surveys. We show that the addition of recent temperature, polarization, and lensing data from ground-based…
The latest measurements of CMB electron scattering optical depth reported by Planck significantly reduces the allowed space of HI reionization models, pointing toward a later ending and/or less extended phase transition than previously…
The Thomson optical depth from reionization is a limiting factor in measuring the amplitude of primordial fluctuations, and hence in measuring physics that affects the low-redshift amplitude, such as the neutrino masses. Current constraints…
High-precision measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation have been previously employed to set robust constraints on dark matter annihilation during recombination. In this work…
Standard analyses of the reionization history of the universe from Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements consider only the overall optical depth to electron scattering ($\tau$), and further assume a step-like…
The first generation (Pop-III) stars can ionize 1-10% of the universe by $z=15$, when the metal-enriched (Pop-II) stars may contribute negligibly to the ionization. This low ionization tail might leave detectable imprints on the large-scale…
Large-scale anomalies have been reported in CMB data with both WMAP and Planck data. These could be due to foreground residuals and or systematic effects, though their confirmation with Planck data suggests they are not due to a problem in…
Patchy reionization leaves a number of imprints on the small-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations, the largest of which is the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ), the Doppler shift of CMB photons scattering off…
We explore the impact of the reionization history on examining the shape of the power spectrum of the primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization. The large-scale CMB generated from the…
Recently, Planck measured a value of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) optical depth due to electron scattering of $\tau=0.066 \pm 0.016$. Here we show that this low value leaves essentially no room for an early partial reionisation of…