相关论文: Parity-violating and anisotropic correlations in p…
The four-point correlation function of primordial scalar perturbations has parity-even and parity-odd contributions and the parity-odd signal in cosmological observations is opening a novel window to look for new physics in the inflationary…
Solid inflation is an effective field theory of inflation in which isotropy and homogeneity are accomplished via a specific combination of anisotropic sources (three scalar fields that individually break isotropy). This results in specific…
One of the major predictions of inflation is the existence of a stochastic background of cosmological gravitational waves (GW). These gravitational waves can induce significant temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background…
The temperature and polarization anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background are analyzed under the hypothesis that the same inflationary seed accounting for protogalactic magnetism also affects the Einstein-Boltzmann hierarchy whose…
Some recent observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and the large-scale structure of the Universe imply cosmic parity violation. Among possible parity-violating sources, helical primordial magnetic fields (PMFs)…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy observed by WMAP has an anomalous dip at l~20 and bump at l~40. One explanation for this structure is the presence of features in the primordial curvature…
Prior to recombination, Silk damping causes the dissipation of energy from acoustic waves into the monopole of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), resulting in spectral distortions. These can be used to probe the primordial scalar power…
If the conformal invariance of electromagnetism is broken during inflation, then primordial magnetic fields may be produced. If this symmetry breaking is generated by the coupling between electromagnetism and a scalar field---e.g. the…
We show that deviations of the quantum state of the inflaton from the thermal vacuum of inflation may leave an imprint in the CMB anisotropies. The quantum dynamics of the inflaton in such a state produces corrections to the inflationary…
We revisit the possibility of producing observable tensor modes through a continuous particle production process during inflation. Particularly, we focus on the multi-field realization of inflation where a spectator pseudo-scalar $\sigma$…
Signatures of heavy particles during inflation are exponentially suppressed by the Boltzmann factor when the masses are far above the Hubble scale. In more realistic scenarios, however, scale-dependent features may change this conventional…
We show that three-dimensional information is critical to discerning the effects of parity violation in the primordial gravity-wave background. If present, helical gravity waves induce parity-violating correlations in the cosmic microwave…
We explore the hemispherical asymmetry predicted in cosmic microwave background polarization when there is an asymmetry in temperature anisotropies due to primordial perturbations. We consider the cases of asymmetries due to adiabatic and…
We investigate a framework aiming to provide a common origin for the large-angle anomalies detected in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which are hypothesized as the result of the statistical inhomogeneity developed by different…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
I present recent work aimed at showing how currently competing theories of the early universe leave their imprint on the temperature anisotropies of the CMB radiation. We consider the 3-point correlation function, as well as the inherent…
Isentropic and isocurvature axion inflationary perturbations are studied in detail. If isocurvature perturbations are present, COBE requires the inflationary Hubble constant to be rather small, $H_{I} \stackrel{<}{\sim} 10^{12}$GeV,…
Primordial non-Gaussianity signatures of extremely heavy particles are re-examined within a simple alternative to the standard inflationary paradigm, in which the primordial fluctuations and the inflationary spacetime expansion are sourced…
We introduce the real space correlation function of $B$-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as a probe of superhorizon tensor perturbations created by inflation. By causality, any non-inflationary mechanism for…
Particle production of an Abelian vector boson field with an axial coupling is investigated. The conditions for the generation of scale invariant spectra for the vector field transverse components are obtained. If the vector field…