Related papers: Constraining fundamental physics with the cosmic m…
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…
The primordial anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are linearly polarized via Compton-scattering. The Faraday conversion process during the propagation of polarized CMB photons through regions of the large-scale structure…
Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contain a wealth of information about the past history of the universe and the present values of cosmological parameters. I ouline some of the theoretical advances of the last few years.…
In this talk, I review some recent work on cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in an open universe. I emphasize that the observed CMB anisotropies are still consistent with a low value of $\Omega$, and I address the question of…
We develop and examine the principles governing the formation of distortions in the cosmic microwave background. Distortions in the frequency or spectral distribution of the background probe the thermal history of the universe whereas those…
In this thesis we investigate several aspects related to the theory of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background. We develop a new algorithm to calculate the angular power spectrum of the anisotropies which is two orders of magnitude…
While the major contribution to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies are the sought-after primordial fluctuations produced at the surface of last scattering, other effects produce secondary fluctuations at lower redshifts.…
The origin of CMB polarization is reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on the cosmological information encoded in it: the nature of primordial fluctuations, the connection with the inflation paradigm. Insights into more recent epochs are…
We discuss the polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves imprinted in cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. The high-energy physics motivated by superstring theory or M-theory generically yield parity violating…
We examine the degree to which observations of large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization can shed light on the puzzling large-scale power modulation in maps of CMB anisotropy. We consider a phenomenological model in which…
The advent of high signal-to-noise cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy experiments has allowed detailed studies on the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations. The existence of acoustic oscillations in the anisotropy power…
The anisotropy and polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) induced by the scalar and tensor metric perturbations are computed in the long-wavelength limit. It is found that the large-scale polarization of CMBR…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
Spatially fluctuating primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) inhomogeneously reheat the Universe when they dissipate deep inside the horizon before recombination. Such an energy injection turns into an additional photon temperature perturbation.…
In this review, we give an overview of some of the major aspects of data reduction and analysis for the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Since its prediction and discovery in the last century, the CMB radiation has proven itself to be one…
Observational Cosmology has indeed made very rapid progress in the past decade. The ability to quantify the universe has largely improved due to observational constraints coming from structure formation Measurements of CMB anisotropy and,…
The anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background are a gold mine for cosmology and fundamental physics. ESA's Planck satellite should soon extract all information from the temperature vein but will be limited concerning the measurement…
The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation carries essential information on early stages of the Universe such as the cosmic inflation, forming cosmological structures through gravitational lensing, and the epoch of…
This set of lectures provides an overview of the basic theory and phenomenology of the cosmic microwave background. Topics include a brief historical review; the physics of temperature and polarization fluctuations; acoustic oscillations of…
These lecture notes cover mainly three connected topics. In the first part we give a detailed treatment of cosmological perturbation theory. The second part is devoted to cosmological inflation and the generation of primordial fluctuations.…