Possible influence of primordial black hole (PBH) evaporations on cosmic microwave background (CMB) is investigated. The spectrum distortions of CMB from the black-body spectrum are described by the chemical potential $μ$ and the Compton parameter $y$. From COBE/FIRAS limits on $μ$ and $y$, the power law index $n$ of primordial density fluctuations and the mass fraction of PBHs $β$ are constrained by employing the peak theory for the formation process of PBHs. Constraints set here are $n < 1.304$ and $n<1.333$ in the thresholds of peaks $ζ_{\rm th} =0.7$ and $ζ_{\rm th} =1.2$, respectively, for the PBH mass range between $2.7\times 10^{11}$g and $1.6 \times 10^{12}$g, and $n < 1.312$ and $n<1.343$ in the thresholds of peaks $ζ_{\rm th} =0.7$ and $ζ_{\rm th} =1.2$, respectively, for the PBH mass range between $1.6 \times 10^{12} {\rm g}$ and $3.5\times 10^{13}$g, which correspond to the comoving scales between $3 \times 10^{-18}$Mpc and $ 4\times 10^{-17}$Mpc. The constraint on the PBH fraction, which is the direct probe of the amplitude of density fluctuations in these scales, stays an almost same value as $β<10^{-21}$ in these mass ranges. It is also found that, with these constraints, UV photons injected by PBH evaporations are unlikely ionize vast hydrogen atoms after recombination.
We reconsider the effects of photon-graviton conversion in a primordial magnetic field upon the cosmic microwave background radiation. We argue that plasma effects make the photon-graviton conversion process negligible.
The role played by a primordial magnetic field during the pre-recombination epoch is analysed through the cyclotron radiation (due to the free electrons) it might produce in the primordial plasma. We discuss the constraint implied by the measurement or lack thereof COBE on this primordial field.
The physics of the origin and evolution of CMB anisotropies is described. I explain the idea and status of cosmic parameter estimation and follow it up with critical comments on its dependence on model assumptions and initial conditions.
We study the primordial nucleosynthesis and cosmic age in the presence of a net lepton asymmetry as well as baryon asymmetry. We explore a previously unnoted region of the parameter space in which very large baryon densities $0.1 \le Ω_b \le 1$ can be accommodated within the light-element constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis. This parameter space consists of $ν_μ$ and $ν_τ$ degeneracies with a small $ν_e$ degeneracy. Constraints from cosmic microwave background fluctuations are also discussed (orito00).
The existence of a primordial magnetic field at the last scattering surface may induce a measurable Faraday rotation in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. We calculate the magnitude of this effect by evolving the radiative transfer equations for the microwave background polarization through the epoch of last scatter, in the presence of a magnetic field. For a primordial field amplitude corresponding to a present value of $10^{-9}{\rm G}$ (which would account for the observed galactic field if it were frozen in the pre-galactic plasma), we find a rotation angle of around $1^\c…
CMBR distortion concerned with recombination of the primordial plasma is calculated in frequency band from 1 GHz to 100 GHz in the frame of the standard cosmological model for different values of cosmological density parameters: nonrelativistic matter density $Ω_m$ and baryonic matter density $Ω_b$. Comparison of these results with observational data which will be obtained from planned experiments may be used for independent determination of the cosmological parameters $Ω_m$ and $Ω_b$.
We study the impact of a stochastic background of primordial magnetic fields on the scalar contribution of CMB anisotropies and on the matter power spectrum. We give the correct initial conditions for cosmological perturbations and the exact expressions for the energy density and Lorentz force associated to the stochastic background of primordial magnetic fields, given a power-law for their spectra cut at a damping scale. The dependence of the CMB temperature and polarization spectra on the relevant parameters of the primordial magnetic fields is illustrated.
Phase transitions taking place during the inflationary epoch give rise to bubbles of true vacuum embedded in the false vacuum. These bubbles can imprint a distinctive signal on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We evaluate the feasibility of detecting these signatures with waveletsin CMB maps, such as those that will be made available by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck mission.
Statistical isotropy of primordial perturbations is a common assumption in cosmology, but it is an assumption that should be tested. To this end, we develop cosmic microwave background statistics for a primordial power spectrum that depends on the direction, as well as the magnitude, of the Fourier wavevector. We first consider a simple estimator that searches in a model-independent way for anisotropy in the square of the temperature (and/or polarization) fluctuation. We then construct the minimum-variance estimators for the coefficients of a spherical-harmonic expansion of the direction-depen…
We estimate the depolarizing effect of a primordial magnetic field upon the cosmic microwave background radiation due to differential Faraday rotation across the last scattering surface. The degree of linear polarization of the CMB is significantly reduced at frequencies around and below 30 GHz $(B_* /10^{-2}{\rm Gauss})^{1/2}$, where $B_*$ is the value of the primordial field at recombination. The depolarizing mechanism reduces the damping of anisotropies due to photon diffusion on small angular scales. The $l\approx 1000$ multipoles of the CMB temperature anisotropy correlation function in a…
Galactic magnetic fields are observed of order $\sim 10^{-6}G$, but their origin is not definitely known yet. In this paper we consider the primordial magnetic fields generated in the early universe and analyse their effects on the density perturbations and the CMBR anisotropy. We assume that the random magnetic fields have the power law spectrum and satisfy the force-free field condition. The peak heights of the CMBR anisotropy are shown to be shifted upward depending on the magnetic field strengths relative to the no-magnetic field case.
Alfven turbulence caused by statistically isotropic and homogeneous primordial magnetic field induces correlations in the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. The correlations are specifically between spherical harmonic modes a_{l-1,m} and a_{l+1,m}. In this paper we approach this issue from phase analysis of the CMB maps derived from the WMAP data sets. Using circular statistics and return phase mapping we examine phase correlation of Δl=2 for the primordial non-Gaussianity caused by the Alfven turbulence at the epoch of recombination. Our analyses show that such specific features from t…
We review current observational constraints on the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), with a particular emphasis on detecting the signature of primordial gravitational waves. We present an analytic solution to the Polanarev approximation for CMB polarization produced by primordial gravitational waves. This simplifies the calculation of the curl, or B-mode power spectrum associated with gravitational waves during the epoch of cosmological inflation. We compare our analytic method to existing numerical methods and also make predictions for the sensitivity of upcoming CMB pola…
We derive a fast way for measuring primordial non-Gaussianity in a nearly full-sky map of the cosmic microwave background. We find a cubic combination of sky maps combining bispectrum configurations to capture a quadratic term in primordial fluctuations. Our method takes only N^1.5 operations rather than N^2.5 of the bispectrum analysis (1000 times faster for l=512), retaining the same sensitivity. A key component is a map of underlying primordial fluctuations, which can be more sensitive to the primordial non-Gaussianity than a temperature map. We also derive a fast and accurate statistic for…
Since cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) and large-scale-structure (LSS) data will shortly improve dramatically with the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) and Planck Surveyor, and the Anglo-Australian 2-Degree Field (2dF) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), respectively, it is timely to ask which of the CMB or LSS will provide a better probe of primordial non-gaussianity. In this paper we consider this question, using the bispectrum as a discriminating statistic. We consider several non-gaussian models and find that in each case the CMB will provide a better probe of primordial non-gaussianity.…
We present preliminary results of TRIS, an experiment dedicated to the search of deviations from a pure planckian distribution in the spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background at frequencies close to 1 GHz
A stochastic magnetic field in the early Universe will produce anisotropies in the temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background. We derive analytic expressions for the microwave background temperature and polarization power spectra induced by vector and tensor perturbations from a power-law magnetic field. For a scale-invariant stochastic magnetic field smoothed over a comoving scale of $1 {\rm Mpc}$, the MAP satellite has the potential to constrain the comoving mean-field amplitude to be no greater than approximately $2\times10^{-9}$ G. Limits improve as the power-law slope…
Measurements of the Faraday rotation of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) polarization could provide evidence for the existence of primordial magnetic fields. The Faraday rotation could also allow the study of some properties of these fields. In this paper, we calculate the angular dependence of the Faraday rotation correlator for different assumptions about the spectral index and correlation length of the magnetic field. We show that the helical part of the magnetic field does not make any contribution to the correlator. We stress the importance of the angular resolution of the…
In our recent paper (Yadav et al. 2007) we described a fast cubic (bispectrum) estimator of the amplitude of primordial non-Gaussianity of local type, f_{NL}, from a combined analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and E-polarization observations. In this paper we generalize the estimator to deal with a partial sky coverage as well as inhomogeneous noise. Our generalized estimator is still computationally efficient, scaling as O(N^3/2) compared to the O(N^5/2) scaling of the brute force bispectrum calculation for sky maps with N pixels. Upcoming CMB experiments are expect…
We discuss a possibility to directly reconstruct the CMB polarization field at the last scattering surface by accounting for modifications imposed by the gravitational lensing effect. The suggested method requires a tracer field of the large scale structure lensing potentials that deflected propagating CMB photons from the last scattering surface. This required information can come from a variety of observations on the large scale structure matter distribution, including convergence reconstructed from lensing shear studies involving galaxy shapes. In the case of so-called curl, or B,-modes of …
We implement and investigate a method for measuring departures from scale-invariance, both scale-dependent as well as scale-free, in the primordial power spectrum of density perturbations using cosmic microwave background (CMB) C_l data and a principal component analysis technique. The primordial power spectrum is decomposed into a dominant scale-invariant Gaussian adiabatic component plus a series of orthonormal modes whose detailed form only depends the noise model for a particular CMB experiment. However, in general these modes are localised across wavenumbers with 0.01 < k < 0.2 Mpc^-1, di…
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, directly from the CMB and LSS data without relying on numerical simulations of non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations. One can use these formulae to estimate statistical errors on f_NL from Gaussian realizations, which are much faster to generate than non-Gaussian ones, fully taking into account the cosmic/sampling variance, beam smearing, survey mask, etc. We…
We report the results of a recent likelihood analysis combining the primordial nucleosynthesis and the BOOMERanG and MAXIMA-1 data on cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies. We discuss the possible implications for relic neutrino background of a high value for the baryonic matter content of the universe, larger than what is expected in a standard nucleosynthesis scenario.
To minimize instrumentally induced systematic errors, cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy experiments measure temperature differences across the sky using paires of horn antennas, temperature map is recovered from temperature differences obtained in sky survey through a map-making procedure. To inspect and calibrate residual systematic errors in recovered temperature maps is important as most previous studies of cosmology are based on these maps. By analyzing pixel-ring couping and latitude dependence of CMB temperatures, we find notable systematic deviation from CMB Gaussianity in re…
We investigate microwave background anisotropies in the presence of primordial magnetic fields. We show that a homogeneous field with fixed direction can amplify vector perturbations. We calculate the correlations of $δT/T$ explicitly and show that a large scale coherent field induces correlations between $a_{\ell-1,m}$ and $a_{\ell+1,m}$. We discuss constraints on amplitude and spectrum of a primordial magnetic field imposed by observations of CMB anisotropies.
Spatially varying primordial magnetic fields may be efficiently dissipated prior to the epoch of recombination due to the large viscosity of the baryon-photon fluid. We show that this dissipation may result in observable chemical potential mu and Compton y distortions in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) spectrum. Current upper limits on mu and y from FIRAS constrain magnetic fields to have strength B_0 < 3\times 10^{-8}Gauss (scaled to the present) between comoving coherence length \approx 400 pc and \approx 0.6 Mpc. This represents the strongest upper limit on small-scale primo…
If the COBE detection of CMB fluctuations is used to normalize the power spectrum of primordial density fluctuations in a cold dark matter--dominated universe, early reionization is likely to result in a substantial diminution of primordial temperature fluctuations on degree scales. I argue that the reionization may be non--Gaussian because of feedback effects. Secondary fluctuations on arc--minute scales provide an important probe of the efficiency of rescattering.
The power spectrum of temperature anisotropies induced by hot intracluster gas on the cosmic background radiation is calculated. For low multipoles it remains constant while at multipoles above $l>2000$ it is exponentially damped. The shape of the radiation power spectrum is almost independent of the average intracluster gas density profile, gas evolution history or clusters virial radii; but the amplitude depends strongly on those parameters and could be as large as 20% that of intrinsic contribution. The exact value depends on the global properties of the cluster population and the evolution…
In this paper we study the effect of a magnetic field on the fluctuation spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. We find that upcoming measurements might give interesting bounds on large scale magnetic fields in the early Universe. If the effects are seen, it might be possible to establish the presence of different fields in different patches of the sky. Absence of any effect, will provide by one order of magnitude a better limit for a primordial field, now given by nucleosynthesis.
A primordial cosmological magnetic field induces Faraday rotation of the cosmic microwave background polarization. This rotation produces a curl-type polarization component even when the unrotated polarization possesses only gradient-type polarization, as expected from scalar density perturbations. We compute the angular power spectrum of curl-type polarization arising from small Faraday rotation due to a weak stochastic primordial magnetic field with a power-law power spectrum. The induced polarization power spectrum peaks at arcminute angular scales. Faraday rotation is one of the few cosmol…
We derive an upper limit of $B_0<3.4\times 10^{-9}(Ω_0h_{50}^2)^{1/2}$ Gauss on the present strength of any primordial homogeneous magnetic field. The microwave background anisotropy created by cosmological magnetic fields is calculated in the most general flat and open anisotropic cosmologies containing expansion-rate and 3-curvature anisotropies. Our limit is derived from a statistical analysis of the 4-year Cosmic Background Explorer data for anisotropy patterns characteristic of homogeneous anisotropy averaged over all possible sky orientations with respect to the COBE receiver. The limits…
It is known that, theoretically, the Rees-Sciama effect may cause arbitrarily large additional redshifts in the cosmic microwave background radiation due to transparent expanding voids having sizes comparable with the size of horizon. Therefore, again theoretically, eventual huge voids existing immediately after the recombination may essentially change the predictions of the theory of big bang nucleosynthesis. If this eventuality holds, then the dark matter can be dominantly baryonic and, simultaneously, one can be in accordance with the predictions of primordial nucleosynthesis theory. Studyi…
The recombination of hydrogen and helium at z~1000-7000 gives unavoidable distortions to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectrum. We present a detailed calculation of the line intensities arising from the Ly-alpha (2p-1s) and two-photon (2s-1s) transitions for the recombination of hydrogen, as well as the corresponding lines from helium. We give an approximate formula for the strength of the main recombination line distortion on the CMB in different cosmologies, this peak occurring at about 170 microns. We also find a previously undescribed long wavelength peak (which we call the pre-re…
A primordial magnetic field in the early universe will cause Faraday rotation of the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background generated via Compton scattering at the surface of last scattering. This rotation induces a non-zero parity-odd (B-mode) polarization component. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 5-year data puts an upper limit on the magnitude of the B-polarization power spectrum; assuming that the B-polarization signal is totally due to the Faraday rotation effect, the upper limits on the comoving amplitude of a primordial stochastic magnetic field range fr…
Previous works have demonstrated that the generation of secondary CMB anisotropies due to the molecular optical depth is likely too small to be observed. In this paper, we examine additional ways in which primordial chemistry and the dark ages might influence the CMB. We present a detailed and updated chemical network and give an overview of the interactions of molecules with the CMB. We consider the optical depth due to line absorption, photoionization, photodissociation and free-free processes, and estimate the resulting changes in the CMB temperature and its power spectrum. The most promisi…
Measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity ($f_{NL}$) open a new window onto the physics of inflation. We describe a fast cubic (bispectrum) estimator of $f_{NL}$, using a combined analysis of temperature and polarization observations. The speed of our estimator allows us to use a sufficient number of Monte Carlo simulations to characterize its statistical properties in the presence of real world issues such as instrumental effects, partial sky coverage, and foreground contamination. We find that our estimator is optimal, where optimality is defined by saturation of the Cramer Rao bound, if no…
We examine the polarization signal of the cosmic microwave background radiation associated with distant clusters. The polarization is induced by the Thomson scattering of microwave photons with ionized gas of clusters and contains information of quadrupole temperature anisotropies observed at the clusters. The three-dimensional map of the signal are expressed in terms of the spin-weighted harmonics for its angular dependence. Its radial dependence is expanded perturbatively with respect to the distances (equivalently redshifts) to the clusters. The independent information that we can extract o…
These lecture notes cover mainly three connected topics. In the first part we give a detailed treatment of cosmological perturbation theory. The second part is devoted to cosmological inflation and the generation of primordial fluctuations. In part three it will be shown how these initial perturbation evolve and produce the temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Comparing the theoretical prediction for the angular power spectrum with the increasingly accurate observations provides important cosmological information (cosmological parameters, initial conditions).
%The content of this replacement paper is identical to the original. %We have attempted to fix the postscript so that it will print out on %a larger number of printers. Using recent experimental limits on $μ$ distortions from COBE FIRAS, and the large lever-arm spanning the damping of sub-Jeans scale fluctuations to the scale of the COBE DMR fluctuations, we set a constraint on the slope of the primordial power spectrum $n$. It is possible to analytically calculate the contribution over the full range of scales and redshifts, correctly taking into account fluctuation growth and damping as well…
We discuss possible distortions of the ionization history of the Universe in the model with small scale baryonic clouds. The corresponding scales of the clouds are much smaller than the typical galactic mass scales. These clouds are considered in a framework of the cosmological model with the isocurvature and adiabatic perturbations. In this model the baryonic clouds do not influence on the cosmic microwave background anisotropy formation directly as an additional sources of perturbations, but due to change of the kinetics of the hydrogen recombination . We also study the corresponding distort…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy is our richest source of cosmological information; the standard cosmological model was largely established thanks to study of the temperature anisotropies. By the end of the decade, the Planck satellite will close this important chapter and move us deeper into the new frontier of polarization measurements. Numerous ground--based and balloon--borne experiments are already forging into this new territory. Besides providing new and independent information on the primordial density perturbations and cosmological parameters, polarization measurements off…
The contribution of gravitational wave (tensor metric) and energy density (scalar metric) fluctuations to the cosmic microwave background polarization is computed by numerically solving the relativistic radiation transfer equations. We find that the tensor contribution is significant only at large angular scales (multipoles $\ell \lta 40$). For standard recombination, the tensor contribution can dominate at $\ell \lta 40$; however, the effect would be difficult to detect since the total (scalar plus tensor) polarization is $< 1$\%. For models with late reionization, the total large angular sca…
In this work I study the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) induced by a cosmological background of gravitational waves (here GWs) and I discuss the enhancement effect of a possible late and fast reionization of the Universe, caused by the Hawking evaporation of primordial black holes and happening at a redshift $z\sim 20÷30$. Then, I solve the radiative Boltzmann transfer equation in the form of a second-kind Volterra integral equation, by using the analytical method of the iterated kernels: this particular method can be successfully applied when we have an exponential kern…
The combination of the first-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data with other finer scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments (CBI and ACBAR) and two structure formation measurements (2dFGRS and Lyman $α$ forest) suggest a $Λ$CDM cosmological model with a running spectral power index of primordial density fluctuations. Motivated by this new result on the index of primordial power spectrum, we present the first study on the predicted lensing probabilities of image separation in a spatially flat $Λ$CDM model with a running spectral index (RSI-$Λ$CDM model). It is shown …
Rotational invariance is a well-established feature of low-energy physics. Violations of this symmetry must be extremely small today, but could have been larger in earlier epochs. In this paper we examine the consequences of a small breaking of rotational invariance during the inflationary era when the primordial density fluctuations were generated. Assuming that a fixed-norm vector picked out a preferred direction during the inflationary era, we explore the imprint it would leave on the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and provide explicit formulas for the expected amplitudes $<a_{lm}a…
Recent observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have extended the measured power spectrum to higher multipoles $l\gtrsim$1000, and there appears to be possible evidence for excess power on small angular scales. The primordial magnetic field (PMF) can strongly affect the CMB power spectrum and the formation of large scale structure. In this paper, we calculate the CMB temperature anisotropies generated by including a power-law magnetic field at the photon last-scattering surface (PLSS). We then deduce an upper limit on the PMF based on our theoretical analysis of the power excess o…
The primordial curvature fluctuation spectrum is reconstructed by the maximum likelihood reconstruction method using the five-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy. We apply the covariance matrix analysis and decompose the reconstructed spectrum into statistically independent band-powers. The prominent peak off a simple power-law spectrum found in our previous analysis turn out to be a $3.3σ$ deviation. From the statistics of primordial spectra reconstructed from mock observations, the probability that a primordial spectrum inc…
The cosmological magnetic field is one of the important physical quantities which affect strongly the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum. Recent CMB observations have been extended to higher multipoles $l\gtrsim$1000, and they resultantly exhibit an excess power than the standard model prediction in cosmological theory which best fits the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data at lower multipoles $l\lesssim$900. We calculate the CMB temperature anisotropies generated by the power-law magnetic field at the last scattering surface (LSS) in order to remove the tension betw…
Primordial gravitational waves (GWs) with frequencies > 10^{-15} Hz contribute to the radiation density of the Universe at the time of decoupling of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The effects of this GW background on the CMB and matter power spectra are identical to those due to massless neutrinos, unless the initial density-perturbation amplitude for the gravitational-wave gas is non-adiabatic, as may occur if such GWs are produced during inflation or some post-inflation phase transition. In either case, current observations provide a constraint to the GW amplitude that competes with …
We reanalyze the cosmological constraints on the existence of a net universal lepton asymmetry and neutrino degeneracy. We show that neutrinos can begin to decouple at higher temperatures than previous estimates due to several corrections which diminish the neutrino reaction rate. These decoupled neutrinos are therefore not heated as the particle degrees of freedom change. The resultant ratio of the relic neutrino-to-photon temperatures after $e^\pm$ annihilation can then be significantly reduced by more than a factor of two from that of the standard nondegenerate ratio. This changes the expan…
The improved data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy allow a better determination of the adiabaticity of the primordial perturbation. Interestingly, we find that recent CMB data seem to favor a contribution of a primordial isocurvature mode where the entropy perturbation is positively correlated with the primordial curvature perturbation and has a large spectral index (niso ~ 3). With 4 additional parameters we obtain a better fit to the CMB data by Delta chi^2 = 9.7 compared to an adiabatic model. For this best-fit model the nonadiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature va…
An inhomogeneous cosmological magnetic field creates vortical perturbations that survive Silk damping on much smaller scales than compressional modes. This ensures that there is no sharp cut-off in anisotropy on arc-minute scales. As we had pointed out earlier, tangled magnetic fields, if they exist, will then be a potentially important contributor to small-angular scale CMBR anisotropies. Several ongoing and new experiments, are expected to probe the very small angular scales, corresponding to multipoles with l>1000. In view of this observational focus, we revisit the predicted signals due to…
We investigate the effect of non-evaporating primordial black holes (PBHs) on the ionization and thermal history of the universe. X-rays emitted by gas accretion onto PBHs modify the cosmic recombination history, producing measurable effects on the spectrum and anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Using the third-year WMAP data and FIRAS data we improve existing upper limits on the abundance of PBHs with masses >0.1 Msun by several orders of magnitude. Fitting WMAP3 data with cosmological models that do not allow for non-standard recombination histories, as produced by PBHs o…