Related papers: Cosmological quests in the CMB sky
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies probe the primordial density field at the edge of the observable Universe. There is a limiting precision (``cosmic variance'') with which anisotropies can determine the amplitude of primordial…
Perturbations from inflation evolve into large scale structure of the late universe, and encode abundant cosmic structure formation physics. We allow freedom in the primordial power spectrum, rather than assuming a power law scale…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) traveled the cosmos long before it reached our telescopes today. Consequently, it is one of the best probes of fundamental processes in the early Universe that we could hope to observe. The cosmological…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
The formation of structure in the Universe offers some of the most powerful evidence in favour of the existence of dark matter in the Universe. We summarize recent work by ourselves and our collaborators, using linear and quasi-linear…
Focus of these lectures is the challenge of explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. The interplay between quantum field theory and classical general relativity has given rise to several interesting cosmological models which…
Observational cosmology is on the verge of new discoveries that will change the essence of our world-view. The matter concerns origin of initial conditions and physics of dark matter.
Recent observations opened up a new window on the inflationary model building. As it was firstly reported by the WMAP data, there may be some indications of statistical anisotropy on the CMB map, although the statistical significance of…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies measurements can provide many clues about the Universe. Although the common belief is that they will allow a very precise measurement of the cosmological parameters (that is, the current…
Observational constraints guide one forcefully to examine models in which the matter density is substantially less than critical density. Particularly noteworthy are those which are consistent with inflation. For these models, microwave…
The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) is now firmly established as a fundamental and essential probe of the geometry, constituents, and birth of the Universe. The CMB is a potent observable because it can be measured with…
Phase transitions in the early universe can readily create an observable stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that such a background necessarily contains anisotropies analogous to those of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
Canada has thriving communities in CMB (cosmic microwave background) studies, cosmology and submillimetre (submm) astronomy, with involvement in many facilities that featured prominently in previous Astronomy Long Range Plans. The standard…
Cosmological inflation remains to be a unique mechanism of generation of plausible initial conditions in the early universe. In particular, it generates the primordial quasiclassical perturbations with power spectrum determined by the…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is encoded with exactly the same cosmic information as the CMB's temperature anistropy. However, polarization has the additional promise of accurately probing the reionization…
I present a pedagogical review of inflation and the cosmic microwave background. I describe how a short period of accelerated expansion can replace the special initial conditions of the standard big bang model. I also describe the…
Since the IAU XXIV meeting in 2000, the CMB anisotropy has matured from being one of a number of cosmological probes to forming the bedrock foundation for what is now the standard model of cosmology. The large advances over the past three…
Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of…
The origin of the large scale structure in the universe - galaxies, quasars, clusters, voids, sheets - is one of the most important questions in cosmology. One can show that some non-thermal energy density fluctuations must have been…