Related papers: Measuring the Curvature of the Universe
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy constrains the geometry of the Universe because the positions of the acoustic peaks of the angular power spectrum depend strongly on the curvature of underlying three-dimensional space. In…
Following the recent measurement of the acoustic peak by the BOOMERanG and MAXIMA experiments in the CMB anisotropy angular power spectrum, many analyses have found that the geometry of the Universe is very close to flat, but slightly…
The expansion of the universe may be observed in ``realtime'' by measuring changes in the patterns of the anisotropy in the CMB. As the universe ages, the surface of decoupling--or the CMB photosphere--moves away from us and samples a…
Cosmic spatial curvature is a fundamental geometric quantity of the Universe. We investigate a model independent, geometric approach to measure spatial curvature directly from observations, without any derivatives of data. This employs…
We propose a new model-independent method to test the cosmic curvature by comparing the proper distance and transverse comoving distance. Using the measurements of Hubble parameter $H(z)$ and angular diameter distance $d_A$, the cosmic…
An interesting test on the nature of the Universe is to measure the global spatial curvature of the metric in a model independent way, at a level of $|\Omega_k|<10^{-4}$, or, if possible, at the cosmic variance level of the amplitude of the…
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…
Probing the geometry of the universe is one of the most important endevours in cosmology. Current observational data from the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy (CMB), galaxy surveys and type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) strongly constrain…
The conventional method to determine the cosmic curvature is to measure the total mass density $\Omega_{\rm tot}$. Unfortunately the observational $\Omega_{\rm tot}$ is closely near the critical value 1. The computation of this paper shows…
We question the global universe isotropy by probing the alignment of local structures in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The original method proposed relies on a steerable wavelet decomposition of the CMB signal on the…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies probe the primordial density field at the edge of the observable Universe. There is a limiting precision (``cosmic variance'') with which anisotropies can determine the amplitude of primordial…
The Universe could be spatially flat, positively curved or negatively curved. Each option has been popular at various times, partly affected by an understanding that models tend to evolve away from flatness. The curvature of the Universe is…
It is well known that observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are highly sensitive to the spatial curvature of the Universe, k. Here we find that what is in fact being tightly constrained by small angle fluctuations is spatial…
In this talk, I will illustrate how one can use the cosmic microwave background anisotropy measurements, in order to test theoretical models aiming at describing the early universe.
Observations of microwave background fluctuations can yield information not only about the geometry of the universe, but potentially about the topology of the universe. If the universe is negatively curved, then the characteristic scale for…
We study the uniqueness and robustness of acoustic signatures in the cosmic microwave background by allowing for the possibility that they are generated by some as yet unknown source of gravitational perturbations. The acoustic {\it…
A large lepton asymmetry in the Universe is still a viable possibility and leads to many interesting phenomena such as gauge symmetry nonrestoration at high temperature. We show that a large lepton asymmetry changes the predicted cosmic…
It seems generic to have vacua with lower dimensionality than ours. We consider the possibility that the observable universe originated in a transition from one of these vacua. Such a universe has anisotropic spatial curvature. This may be…
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,…
Bayesian model averaging is a procedure to obtain parameter constraints that account for the uncertainty about the correct cosmological model. We use recent cosmological observations and Bayesian model averaging to derive tight limits on…