Related papers: Inflation and the cosmic microwave background
Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contain a wealth of information about the past history of the universe and the present values of cosmological parameters. I ouline some of the theoretical advances of the last few years.…
Accurate estimation of cosmological parameters from microwave background anisotropies requires high-accuracy understanding of the cosmological model. Normally, a power-law spectrum of density perturbations is assumed, in which case the…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
I review the general aspects of cosmological parameter estimation from observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies in the framework of inflationary adiabatic models. The most recent CMB datasets are…
A class of well-motivated models of inflation end by producing cosmic strings. The current status of efforts to calculate and observe the signals from such models are outlined, with a particular emphasis on cosmic strings, and on the Cosmic…
I review the current status of the theory of Cosmic Inflation. My discussion covers the motivation and implementation of the idea, as well as an analysis of recent successes and open questions. There is a special discussion of the physics…
This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its…
We use a compilation of cosmic microwave anisotropy data (including the recent VSA, CBI and Archeops results), supplemented with an additional constraint on the expansion rate, to directly constrain the parameters of slow-roll inflation…
We summarize the physical mechanism by which the Cosmic Microwave Background acquires a small degree of polarization. We discuss the imprint left by gravitational waves and the use of polarization as a test of the inflationary paradigm. We…
Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature are being studied with ever increasing precision. Two competing types of theories might describe the origins of these fluctuations: ``inflation'' and ``defects''. Here we…
We present the status of our study into the feasibility of estimating the parameters of inflation from planned satellite observations of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).We describe a perturbative procedure for…
Observations of the polarization of the cosmic microwave backround (CMB) have the potential to place much tighter constraints on cosmological parameters than observations of the fluctuations in temperature alone. We discuss using CMB…
In this paper, inflationary cosmology is reviewed, paying particular attention to its observational signatures associated with large-scale density perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations. In the most general scalar-tensor theories…
We aim to present a tutorial on the detection, parameter estimation and statistical analysis of compact sources (far galaxies, galaxy clusters and Galactic dense emission regions) in cosmic microwave background observations. The topic is of…
This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or…
Slow-roll inflation generically makes several predictions: a flat Universe, primordial adiabatic density perturbations, and a stochastic gravity-wave background. Each inflation model will further predict specific relations between the…
We discuss a new test of inflation from the harmonic pattern of peaks in the cosmic microwave background radiation angular power spectrum. By characterizing the features of alternate models and revealing signatures essentially unique to…
We discuss the inflationary paradigm, how it can be tested, and how various models of inflation fare in the light of data from Planck and BICEP2. We introduce inflation and reheating, and discuss temperature and polarisation anisotropies in…
The properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation provide unique constraints on cosmological models, i.e. on the content, history, and evolution of the Universe. I discuss the latest measurements of the spectral and spatial…
A scenario with two subsequent periods of inflationary expansion in the very early universe is examined. The model is based on a potential motivated by symmetries being found in field theory at high energy. For various parameter sets of the…