Related papers: Minkowski Functional Description of Microwave Back…
We derive analytical formulae for the Minkowski Functions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS) from primordial non-Gaussianity. These formulae enable us to estimate a non-linear coupling parameter, f_NL,…
Minkowski functionals (MFs) quantify the topological properties of a given field probing its departure from Gaussianity. We investigate their use on lensing convergence maps in order to see whether they can provide further insights on the…
We present a novel approach to quantifying the morphology of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy maps. As morphological descriptors, we use shape parameters known as Minkowski functionals. Using the mathematical framework provided…
It is possible to classify pixels of a smoothed cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuation map according to their local curvature in ``hill'', ``lake'' and ``saddle'' regions. In the Gaussian case, fractional areas occupied by pixels of…
The identification of non-Gaussian signatures in cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps is one of the main cosmological challenges today. We propose and investigate altenative methods to analyse CMB maps. Using the technique of…
The angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies is a key tool to study the Universe. However, it is blind to the presence of non--Gaussianities and deviations from statistical isotropy, which instead can be…
The Standard Inflationary model predicts an isotropic distribution of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature fluctuations. Detection of deviations from statistical isotropy would call for a revision of the physics of the early…
The presence of non--Gaussian features in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps represents one of the most long--awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation, still needing confirmation.…
We suggest novel statistics for the CMB maps that are sensitive to non-Gaussian features. These statistics are natural generalizations of the geometrical and topological methods that have been already used in cosmology such as the…
We compute analytically the small-scale temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background from cosmic (super-)strings and study the dependence on the string intercommuting probability $P$. We develop an analytical model which…
Why is non-Gaussianity interesting? One of generic predictions from inflationary scenarios is that primordial fluctuations are exactly Gaussian in linear order; however, the non-linearity in the inflation will produce weak non-Gaussianity.…
Gravitational fluctuations along the line-of-sight from the surface of last scatter to the observer distort the microwave background in several related ways: The fluctuations deflect the photon path (gravitational lensing), the decay of the…
We have independently measured the genus topology of the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background seen by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). A genus analysis of the WMAP data indicates consistency with…
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
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…
Non-Gaussian statistics in the distribution of large scale structure, and in temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background, can be used to constrain inflationary models. Data on the cosmic microwave background from Planck…
We use Minkowski Functionals to explore the presence of non-Gaussian signatures in simulated cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. Precisely, we analyse the non-Gaussianities produced from the angular power spectra emerging from a class…
We present a new harmonic-domain approach for extracting morphological information, in the form of Minkowski Functionals (MFs), from weak lensing (WL) convergence maps. Using a perturbative expansion of the MFs, which is expected to be…
We pursue a novel morphometric analysis to detect sources in very-high-energy gamma-ray counts maps by structural deviations from the background noise. Because the Minkowski functionals from integral geometry quantify the shape of the…
The upcoming satellite missions MAP and Planck will measure the spectrum of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background with unprecedented accuracy. We discuss the prospect of using these observations to distinguish among proposed…