Related papers: Observational constraints on blue primordial spect…
We investigate constraints on the spectral index of primordial gravitational waves (GWs), paying particular attention to a blue-tilted spectrum. Such constraints can be used to test a certain class of models of the early Universe. We…
We investigate inflationary models leading to density perturbations with a spectral index $n>1$ (``blue spectra"). These perturbation spectra may be useful to simultaneously account for both the amount of ultra large-scale power required to…
Motivated by the string gas cosmological model, which predicts a blue tilt of the primordial gravitational wave spectrum, we examine the constraints imposed by current and planned observations on a blue tilted tensor spectrum. Starting from…
Recent data on the high--redshift abundance of damped Ly$\alpha$ systems are compared with theoretical predictions for `blue' (i.e. $n>1$) Mixed Dark Matter models. The results show that decreasing the hot component fraction $\Omega_\nu$…
Blue primordial power spectra with a spectral index $n>1$ can lead to a significant production of primordial black holes in the very early Universe. The evaporation of these objects leads to a number of observational consequences and a…
We present a series of theoretical constraints on the potentially viable inflation models that might yield a blue spectrum for primordial tensor perturbations. By performing a detailed dynamical analysis we show that, while there exists…
We study density perturbations in several cosmological models motivated by string theory. The evolution and the spectra of curvature perturbations ${\cal R}$ are analyzed in the Ekpyrotic scenario and nonsingular string cosmologies. We find…
We study the spectrum of primordial fluctuations in theories where the inflaton field is coupled to massless fields and/or to itself. Conformally invariant theories generically predict a scale invariant spectrum. Scales entering the theory…
Gravitational lensing observations of galaxy clusters have identified dark matter ``blobs'' with remarkably low baryonic content. We use such a system to probe the particle nature of dark matter with X-ray observations. We also study high…
We investigate the ability of current CMB data to reliably constrain the form of the primordial power spectrum generated during inflation. We attempt to identify more exotic power spectra that yield equally good fits to the data as simple…
Among the few ways that allow or could allow us to probe the early Universe from the observation of a flux of primordial particles, there is one possibility which has been little studied: the observation today of high energy neutrinos which…
Clusters of galaxies are studied from a theoretical point of view, comparing with observational results whenever possible. The problem is approached both analytically as well as by means of high-resoultion numerical simulations. The dark…
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…
We study the primordial bispectrum of curvature perturbation in the uniform- density slicing generated by the interaction between the inflaton and isotropic background gauge fields. We derive the action up to cubic order in perturbation and…
Blue CDM-photon isocurvature perturbations are attractive in terms of observability and may be typical from the perspective of generic mass relations in supergravity. We present and apply three theorems useful for blue isocurvature…
We investigate the statistical properties of primordial black hole (PBH) formation in the very early Universe. We show that the high level of inhomogeneity of the early Universe leads to the formation of the first generation PBHs. %The…
We study the tilt of the primordial gravitational waves spectrum. A hint of blue tilt is shown from analyzing the BICEP2 and POLARBEAR data. Motivated by this, we explore the possibilities of blue tensor spectra from the very early universe…
We investigate the effect of potentially large distortions of the relic neutrino spectra on cosmological observables. To that end, we consider a phenomenological model of "gray" spectral distributions, described by a single parameter, which…
A common mechanism to form primordial black holes in the early universe is by enhancing at small-scales the scalar perturbations generated during inflation. If these fluctuations have a large enough amplitude, they may collapse into…
There is a large and growing interest in observations of small-scale structure in dark matter. We propose a new way to probe dark matter structures in the $\sim 10 - 10^8 \, M_\odot$ range. This allows us to constrain the primordial power…