Related papers: From Microwave Anisotropies to Cosmology
This lecture is a sketch of the physics of the cosmic microwave background. The observed anisotropy can be divided into four main contributions: variations in the temperature and gravitational potential of the primordial plasma, Doppler…
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 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…
It is attractive to suppose for several astrophysical reasons that the universe has close to the critical density in light (~30 eV) neutrinos which decay radiatively with a lifetime of ~10^{23} sec. In such a cosmology the universe is…
Cosmological models where the standard big bang is replaced by a bounce have been studied for decades. The situation has, however, dramatically changed in the past years for two reasons: first, because new ways to probe the early Universe…
Observers have demonstrated that it is now feasible to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature at high redshifts. We explore the possible constraints on cosmology which might ultimately be derived from such measurements.…
We argue that the observed large-scale cosmic microwave anomalies, discovered by WMAP and confirmed by the Planck satellite, are most naturally explained in the context of a marginally-open universe. Particular focus is placed on the dipole…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), especially of its frequency spectrum and its anisotropies, both in temperature and in polarization, have played a key role in the development of modern cosmology and our understanding…
It has been argued that the large-angle cosmic microwave background anisotropy has anomalies at 3-sigma level. We review various proposed ideas to explain the origin of the anomalies and discuss how we can constrain the proposed models…
Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies by BOOMERANG and MAXIMA collaborations have tightened the observational constraints on theories of structure formation. They disagree with the predictions of…
We examine the possibility that circles in the cosmic microwave background could be formed by the interaction of a gravitational wave pulse emitted in some pre-big-bang phase of the universe with the last scattering surface. We derive the…
We study the polarization-temperature correlations on the cosmic microwave sky resulting from an initial scale invariant spectrum of tensor (gravity wave) fluctuations, such as those which might arise during inflation. The correlation…
Observations of the Cosmic Microwave background have provided many of the most powerful constraints we have on cosmology and events in the early universe. The spectrum and isotropy of CBR have long been a pillar of Big Bang models. The…
We study the apparent lack of power on large angular scales in the WMAP data. We confirm that although there is no apparent lack of power at large angular scales for the full-sky maps, the lowest multipoles of the WMAP data happen to have…
This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on the theory of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Journal articles, web pages, and books are cited for the following topics: discovery, cosmological origin, early work,…
A compact overview of the status of CMB anisotropy results and their cosmological interpretation up until the end of 2005. Sections headings: Introduction; Description of CMB Anisotropies; Cosmological Parameters; Physics of Anisotropies;…
The breakdown of statistical homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic perturbations is a generic feature of ultra large scale structure of the cosmos, in particular, of non trivial cosmic topology. The statistical isotropy (SI) of the Cosmic…
I give a status report and outlook concerning the use of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies to constrain the inflationary cosmology, and stress its crucial role as an underlying paradigm for the estimation of cosmological…
We point out that polarization measurements as planned for the upcoming PLANCK mission can significantly enhance the accuracy of cosmic parameter estimation compared to the temperature anisotropy spectrum alone. In order to illustrate this,…
Scaling properties of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation are studied using satellite (COBE-DMR maps), balloon-borne and ground-based (combined QMASK map) data. Quantitative consistency is found between the multiscaling…