Related papers: Polarization of the Microwave Background in Defect…
The curl-modes of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization probe horizon-scale primordial gravitational waves related to inflation. A significant source of confusion is expected from a lensing conversion of polarization related to…
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,…
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have revealed a dipolar asymmetry in power at the largest scales, in apparent contradiction with the statistical isotropy of standard cosmological models. The…
One of the most intriguing hints of a departure from the standard cosmological model is a large-scale dipolar power asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). If not a statistical fluke, its origins must lie in the modulation of…
We investigate the impact of a hypothesized delayed initiation of inflation, characterized by a cutoff k_min to the primordial power spectrum in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This cutoff affects both the scalar and tensor spectra,…
We study the imprints of anisotropic inflation on the CMB temperature fluctuations and polarizations. The statistical anisotropy stems not only from the direction dependence of curvature and tensor perturbations, but also from the cross…
Templates for polarised emission from Galactic foregrounds at frequencies relevant to Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarisation experiments are obtained by modelling the Galactic Magnetic Field (GMF) on large scales. This work extends…
Features during inflation and reionization leave corresponding features in the temperature and polarization power spectra that could potentially explain anomalies in the Planck 2015 data but require a joint analysis to disentangle. We study…
Geometrical and statistical properties of polarization of CMB are analyzed. Singular points of the vector field which describes CMB polarization are found and classified. Statistical distribution of the singularities is studied. A possible…
Both the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck observations reported the hemispherical asymmetry of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuation. The hemispherical asymmetry might be stemmed from the…
We compute numerically the scalar- and tensor-mode induced Stokes parameters of the cosmic microwave background, by taking into account the basis rotation effects. It is found that the tensor contribution to the polarization power spectrum…
Recently, BICEP2 measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) $B$-mode polarization has indicated the presence of primordial gravitational waves at degree angular scales, inferring the tensor-to-scalar ratio of $r=0.2$ and a…
The recent BICEP2 measurement of B-modes in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background suggests that inflation was driven by a field at an energy scale of $2\times 10^{16}$ GeV. I explore the potential of upcoming CMB polarization…
A complete numerical calculation of the temperature anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in the presence of a stochastic helical magnetic field is presented which includes the contributions due to scalar,…
Forthcoming cosmic microwave background experiments (CMB) will provide precise new tests of structure-formation theories. The geometry of the Universe may be determined robustly, and the classical cosmological parameters, such as the…
Temperature and polarization power spectra of the cosmic microwave background can provide essentially incontrovertible evidence for coherent acoustic oscillations in the early universe. A simple model calculation demonstrates explicitly how…
Full-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background temperature reveal a 7% asymmetry of fluctuation power between two halves of the sky. A common phenomenological model for this asymmetry is an overall dipole modulation of statistically…
In this paper, we study how to predict the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background using knowledge of only the temperature (intensity) and the cross-correlation between temperature and polarization. We derive a ``Wiener prediction''…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) can serve as a probe for nonstandard parity violating interactions. Many such interactions are predicted in particle physics models arising from theories with extra…
The potential role of cosmic topological defects has raised interest in the astrophysical community for many years now. In this set of notes, we give an introduction to the subject of cosmic topological defects and some of their possible…