Related papers: Cosmological quests in the CMB sky
The measurements of CMB anisotropy have opened up a window for probing the global topology of the universe on length scales comparable to and beyond the Hubble radius. We have developed a new method for calculating the CMB anisotropy in…
The standard theory of cosmic structure formation posits that the present-day rich structure of the Universe developed through gravitational amplification of tiny matter density fluctuations generated in its very early history. Recent…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Last couple of decades have been the golden age for cosmology. High quality data confirmed the broad paradigm of standard cosmology but have thrusted upon us a preposterous composition for the universe which defies any simple explanation,…
Recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy have provided evidence for the presence of oscillations in the angular power spectrum. These oscillations are a wonderful confirmation of the standard cosmological scenario…
I review the basic theory of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies in adiabatic cold dark matter cosmologies. The latest observational results on the CMB power spectrum are consistent with the simplest inflationary models and…
An introductory account is given of the inflationary cosmology, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the Universe's earliest stages. The historical motivation is briefly outlined, and the modelling of the inflationary…
We review the theory of the temperature anisotropy and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and describe what we have learned from current CMB observations. In particular, we discuss how the CMB is being used to…
This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its…
The linear anisotropies in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and its polarization provide a clean picture of fluctuations in the universe some 370 kyr after the big bang. Simple physics connects these…
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…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides a precious window on fundamental physics at very high energy scales, possibly including quantum gravity, GUTs and supersymmetry. The CMB has already enabled defect-based rivals to inflation to…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
These lecture notes form a primer on the theory of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy formation. With emphasis on conceptual aspects rather than technical issues, we examine the physical foundations of anisotropy evolution in…
Magnetic fields are observed not only in stars, but in galaxies, clusters, and even high redshift Lyman-alpha systems. In principle, these fields could play an important role in structure formation and also affect the anisotropies in the…
The early universe according to the big bang and the grand unified theories is discussed. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent oscillation and decay…
Quantum fluctuations during inflation may be responsible for temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations of CMB anisotropies can be used to falsify many currently popular models. In this paper we discuss…
A short introduction to structure formation is given, followed by a discussion of the possible characteristics of the initial perturbations assuming a generic inflationary origin. Observational data related to large-scale structure and the…
Precision measurements of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and of the clustering of large-scale structure have supposedly confirmed that the primordial density perturbation has a (nearly) scale-invariant spectrum. However…
Slow-roll inflation generically makes several predictions: a flat Universe, primordial adiabatic density perturbations, and a stochastic gravity-wave background. Each inflation model will further predict specific relations between the…