Related papers: Cosmic Density Perturbations from Late-Decaying Sc…
Diffusion damping of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum results from imperfect photon-baryon coupling in the pre-recombination plasma. At redshift $5 \times 10^4 < z < 2 \times 10^6$, the plasma acquires an effective…
The weak lensing effect on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) induces distortions in spatial pattern of CMB anisotropies, and statistical properties of CMB anisotropies become a weakly non-Gaussian field. We first summarize the weak…
We show that dissipative effects have a significant impact on the evolution of cosmological scalar fields, leading to friction, entropy production and field fluctuations. We explicitly compute the dissipation coefficient for different…
In the early Universe, a dual component made of coupled CDM and a scalar field $\Phi$, if their coupling $\beta > \sqrt{3}/2$, owns an attractor solution, making them a stationary fraction of cosmic energy during the radiation dominated…
The standard model of cosmology with nearly Gaussian, isotropic, scale invariant and adiabatic initial conditions describes the cosmological observations well. However, the study of any deviation from the mentioned conditions will open up a…
Mainly used to set constraints on cosmological parameters, CMB anisotropies can give information on primordial universe. Unfortunately, initial conditions and late time cosmology are degenerated. I focus on the effect of the shape of the…
We study Quintessence cosmologies in the context of scalar-tensor theories of gravity, where a scalar field $\phi$, assumed to provide most of the cosmic energy density today, is non-minimally coupled to the Ricci curvature scalar $R$. Such…
Recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations put strong constraints on the spatial curvature via estimation of the parameter $\Omega_k$ assuming an almost scale invariant primordial power spectrum. We study the evolution of the…
In the context of inflationary scenarios, the observed large angle anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature is believed to probe the primordial metric perturbations from inflation. Although the perturbations from…
We examine from first principles one of the basic assumptions of modern quantum theories of structure formation in the early universe, i.e., the conditions upon which fluctuations of a quantum field may transmute into classical stochastic…
Anisotropies in distortions to the frequency spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be created through spatially varying heating processes in the early Universe. For instance, the dissipation of small-scale acoustic modes…
I discuss the possibility of using a massive vector field to generate the density perturbation in the Universe. I find that a scale-invariant superhorizon spectrum of vector field perturbations is possible to generate during inflation. The…
Density perturbations in the cosmic microwave background within general $f(R,\phi)$ models of gravity are investigated. The general dynamical equations for the tensor and scalar modes in any $f(R,\phi)$ gravity model are derived. An…
The Milky Way can act as a large-scale weak gravitational lens of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We study this effect using a photon ray-tracing code and a Galactic mass distribution with disk, bulge and halo components. For an…
We review why the search for a causal explanation of the large scale properties of the universe supports the idea that an extended period of accelerated expansion, called inflation, preceded primordial nucleosynthesis. As a consequence of…
In D-term inflation models, the fluctuations of squark fields in the flat directions give rise to isocurvature density fluctuations stored in the Affleck-Dine condensate. After the condensate breaks up in B-balls, these can be perturbations…
Structure formation models with a cosmological constant are successful in explaining large-scale structure data, but are threatened by the magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae. This has led to discussion of models where the…
A new component of the cosmic medium, a light scalar field or ''quintessence '', has been proposed recently to explain cosmic acceleration with a dynamical cosmological constant. Such a field is expected to be coupled explicitely to…
Recently, attempts have been made to understand the apparent near coincidence of the present dark energy and matter energy in terms of a dynamical attractor-like solution for the evolution of a scalar field. In these models the field…
When a subdominant light scalar field ends slow roll during inflation, but well after the Hubble exit of the pivot scales, it may determine the cosmological perturbations. This thesis investigates how such a scalar field, the spectator, may…