Related papers: Cosmology with CMB anisotropy
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenges-developing a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe and identifying the…
Recently, the Planck 2013 results showed possible evidence for a dipolar power modulation of the CMB temperature fluctuations at low--(\ell) multipoles. This anomaly might imply certain deviations from statistical isotropy. To incorporate…
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…
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) is a relict of the early universe. Its perfect 2.725K blackbody spectrum demonstrates that the universe underwent a hot, ionized early phase; its anisotropy (about 80 \mu K rms) provides strong evidence…
In the context of inflationary scenarios, the observed large angle anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature is believed to probe the primordial metric perturbations from inflation. Although the perturbations from…
Most of the analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background relies on the assumption of statistical isotropy. However, given some recent evidence pointing against isotropy, as for instance the observed alignment of different multipoles on large…
We explore a broad class of three-parameter inflationary models, called the $\Lambda$-inflation, and its observational predictions: high abundance of cosmic gravitational waves consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum of primordial…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies, as observed by independent astronomical missions such as WMAP, Planck, and most recently the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope have…
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…
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…
The current suite of results from Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy experiments is fulfilling the promise of providing extraordinary levels of discrimination between cosmological models. We calculate a binned anisotropy power spectrum,…
It is commonly assumed that the stochastic background of gravitational waves on cosmological scales follows an almost scale-independent power spectrum, as generically predicted by the inflationary paradigm. However, it is not inconceivable…
Alan Guth introduced cosmologists to inflation at the 1980 Texas Symposium. Since, inflation has had almost as much impact on cosmology as the big-bang model itself. However, unlike the big-bang model, it has little observational support.…
We asses the contribution to the observed large scale anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation, arising from both gravity waves as well as adiabatic density perturbations, generated by a common inflationary mechanism in the…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
The distribution of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in the sky is determined by the hypothesis of random Gaussian distribution of the primordial density perturbations. This hypotheses is well motivated by the…
We argue that the lack of power exhibited by cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies at large angular scales might be linked to the onset of inflation. We highlight observational features and theoretical hints that support this view,…
The standard cosmological model, based on general relativity with an inflationary era, is very effective in accounting for a broad range of observed features of the universe. However, the ongoing puzzles about the nature of dark matter and…
A complete numerical calculation of the temperature anisotropies and the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is presented for a non zero cross correlation of a stochastic magnetic field with the primordial curvature…