Related papers: Can Lightcone Fluctuations be Probed with Cosmolog…
In studying temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background Weinberg has noted that some ease of calculation and insight can be achieved by looking at the structure of the perturbed light cone on which the perturbed photons…
The advent of gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy has presented us with a completely new means for observing the Universe, allowing us to probe its structure and evolution like never before. In this thesis, we explore three distinct but…
It has recently been shown that specific non-perturbative effects may lead to an explosive decay of flat direction condensates in supersymmetric theories. We confirm explicitly the efficiency of this process with lattice simulations: after…
We use the induced geometry on the two dimensional transverse cross section of a photon beam propagating on a perturbed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetime to find the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photon distribution over a…
The standard model of cosmology assumes a homogeneous and isotropic universe that undergoes a period of exponential expansion very early on, named inflation. This stretches quantum fluctuations from the onset of inflation to cosmological…
We present quantitative investigations of the weak lensing effect on the two-point correlation functions of local maxima (hotspots), $\xipk(\theta)$, in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. The lensing effect depends on the projected…
Primordial gravitational waves are created during the de Sitter phase of an exponentially-expanding (inflationary) universe, due to quantum zero-point vacuum fluctuations. These waves produce fluctuations in the temperature of the Cosmic…
The power spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) depends on most of the key cosmological parameters. Accurate future measurements of this power spectrum might therefore allow us to determine h, Omega, Omega_b,…
We analyse the implications for inflationary models of the cosmic microwave background (cmb) anisotropy measured by COBE. Vacuum fluctuations during inflation generate an adiabatic density perturbation, and also gravitational waves. The…
In Luparello et al. 2023, a new and hitherto unknown CMB foreground was detected. A systematic decrease in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperatures around nearby large spiral galaxies points to an unknown interaction with CMB photons…
Current bounds from the polarization of the CMB predict the scale-invariant gravitational wave (GW) background of inflation to be out of reach for upcoming GW interferometers. This prospect dramatically changes if the inflaton is a…
I review the present status of the Cosmic Microwave Background, with some emphasis on the current and future implications for particle physics. Conclusions are: gravitational instability in a dark matter dominated universe grew today's…
On the frequency-amplitude plane, Gravitational Waves (GWs) from cosmic strings show a flat plateau at higher frequencies due to the string loop dynamics in standard radiation dominated post-inflationary epoch. The spectrum may show an…
Gravitational wave bursts with memory (BWMs) can generate measurable, long-lived frequency shifts and permanent angular deflections in distant sources of light. These perturbations vary across the sky with a characteristic spatial pattern…
Since WMAP and Planck some anomalous features appeared in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) large-angle anisotropy, the so-called anomalies. One of these is the hemispherical power asymmetry, i.e. a difference in the average power on…
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.…
In standard inflationary cosmology, scalar and tensor perturbations grew as the Universe expanded and froze when their wavelengths exceeded the Hubble horizon, producing a tell-tale signature in the fluctuation spectrum and amplitude of the…
Loop quantum cosmology provides an efficient framework to study the evolution of the Universe beyond the classical Big Bang paradigm. Because of holonomy corrections, the singularity is replaced by a "bounce". The dynamics of the background…
We investigate the cosmic variance of the skewness of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in an inflationary model which leads to the baryon isocurvature scenario for the cosmic structure formation. In this model, the baryon…
The B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies at large angular scales provides a smoking-gun evidence for the primordial gravitational waves (GWs). It is often stated that a discovery of the GWs establishes…