In this paper we set bounds on the radiation content of the Universe and neutrino properties by using the WMAP-5 year CMB measurements complemented with most of the existing CMB and LSS data (WMAP5+All),imposing also self-consistent BBN constraints on the primordial helium abundance. We consider lepton asymmetric cosmological models parametrized by the neutrino degeneracy parameter and the variation of the relativistic degrees of freedom, due to possible other physical processes occurred between BBN and structure formation epochs. We find that WMAP5+All data provides strong bounds on helium mass fraction and neutrino degeneracy parameter that rivals the similar bounds obtained from the conservative analysis of the present data on helium abundance. We also find a strong correlation between the matter energy density and the redshift of matter-radiation equality, z_re, showing that we observe non-zero equivalent number of relativistic neutrinos mainly via the change of the of z_re, rather than via neutrino anisotropic stress claimed by the WMAP team. We forecast that the CMB temperature and polarization measurements observed with high angular resolutions and sensitivities by the future Planck satellite will reduce the errors on these parameters down to values fully consistent with the BBN bounds.
The WMAP first year detection of a high redshift reionization through its imprints on CMB anisotropy T and TE mode angular power spectra calls for a better comprehension of the universe ionization and thermal history after the standard recombination. Different reionization mechanisms predict different signatures in the CMB, both in temperature and polarization anisotropies and in spectral distortions. The Planck capability to distinguish among different scenarios through its sensitivity to T, TE, and E mode angular power spectra is discussed. Perspectives open by future high sensitivity experi…
We analyze first-year data of WMAP to determine the significance of asymmetry in summed power between arbitrarily defined opposite hemispheres, using maps that we create ourselves with software developed independently of the WMAP team. We find that over the multipole range l=[2,64], the significance of asymmetry is ~ 10^-4, a value insensitive to both frequency and power spectrum. We determine the smallest multipole ranges exhibiting significant asymmetry, and find twelve, including l=[2,3] and [6,7], for which the significance -> 0. In these ranges there is an improbable association between t…
The vacuum inflation with a boundary condition specified at a short-distance scale in a generally primeval non-flat Universe, and implications of the correspondingly modified primordial power spectrum via the WMAP data are investigated. We obtain a general form of the modified primordial power spectrum including the effects of both possibly new physics scale and the spatial curvature. The modulation of the primordial power spectrum due to new physics is of the order $H/Λ$, where $H$ is the Hubble parameter during inflation and $Λ$ is the new physics scale that is key to inflation, while the mo…
We find the condition that the primordial baryon asymmetry is not washed out in the $SU(2)_{L}$ triplet Higgs model by solving the Boltzmann equation. We further require that the model is compatible with the recent results of the neutrino oscillation experiments and WMAP, and the constraints on the $ρ$ parameter imposed by the LEP. We finally obtain the allowed region of the parameters in the model.
We require that the primordial baryon asymmetry is not washed out in the seesaw model compatible with the recent results of WMAP and the neutrino oscillation experiments including the first results of KamLAND. We find that only the case of the normal neutrino mass hierarchy with an approximate $L_{e}$-symmetry satisfies the requirement. We further derive, depending on the signs of neutrino mass eigenvalues, three types of neutrino mass matrixes, where the values of each element are rather precisely fixed.
We use the local curvature to investigate the possible existence of non-Gaussianity/asymmetry in the WMAP data. Considering the full sky we find results which are consistent with the Gaussian assumption. However, strong non-Gaussian features emerge when considering the northern and southern galactic hemisphere separately, particularly on scales between 1 and 5 degrees. Quite interestingly, the maximum non-Gaussianity is found for hemispheres centered near the ecliptic poles, which might suggest the presence of some systematic effect. The direction of the asymmetry seems consistent with the fin…
The Planck satellite is expected to improve the measurement of most cosmological parameters by several factors with respect to current WMAP results. The actual performance may depend upon various aspects of the data analysis. In this paper we analyse the impact of specifics of the data analysis on the actual final results. We also explore the synergies in combining Planck results with future galaxy surveys. We find that Planck will improve constraints on most cosmological parameters by a factor 3-4 and on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r by a factor 9. Also inflationary parameters, like r, n_s and…
Several accurate analyses have revealed a statistically significant North-South ecliptic asymmetry in the large-angle correlations strength of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation temperature field data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This asymmetry is inconsistent with the statistical isotropy expected in the concordance cosmological model LCDM. It has been suggested that a possible cause-effect relationship exists between this large-angle anisotropy and the anomalous CMB quadrupole-octopole planes alignment. In turn, this later phenomenon (or both) would be a…
We investigate the accuracy attainable by forthcoming space-based observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy in constraining the dark energy density parameter $\Oq$ and equation of state $\wq=p_{\rm Q}/ρ_{\rm Q}$. Despite degeneracies among parameters, it is possible for high precision observations such as those from WMAP and Planck to provide interesting information on the nature of the dark energy. Furthermore, we show that imposing a flat universe constraint makes it possible to obtain tight limits in the space of dark energy parameters eve…
We reexamine the evidence of the hemispherical power asymmetry, detected in the CMB WMAP data using a new method. At first, we analyze the hemispherical variance ratios and compare these with simulated distributions. Secondly, working within a previously-proposed CMB bipolar modulation model, we constrain model parameters: the amplitude and the orientation of the modulation field as a function of various multipole bins. Finally, we select three ranges of multipoles leading to the most anomalous signals, and we process corresponding 100 Gaussian, random field (GRF) simulations, treated as obser…
We place constraints on the number of relativistic degrees of freedom and on the baryon asymmetry at the epoch of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and at recombination, using cosmic background radiation (CBR) data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), complemented by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Key Project measurement of the Hubble constant, along with the latest compilation of deuterium abundances and measurements of the primordial helium abundance. The agreement between the derived values of these key cosmological and particle physics parameters at these widely separated (…
We perform a frequentist analysis of the bispectrum of WMAP first year data. We find clear signal domination up to l=200, with overall consistency with Gaussianity except for the following features. There is a flat patch (i.e. a low chi-squared region) in the same-l components of the bispectrum spanning the range l=32-62; this may be interpreted as ruling out Gaussianity at the 99.6% confidence level. There is also an asymmetry between the North and South inter-l bispectrum components at the 99% confidence level. The preferred asymmetry axis correlates well with the (l,b)=(57,10) direction quo…
Several accurate analyses of the CMB temperature maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have revealed a set of anomalous results, at large angular scales, that appears inconsistent with the statistical isotropy expected in the concordance cosmological model $Λ$CDM. Because these anomalies seem to indicate a preferred direction in the space, here we investigate the signatures that a primordial magnetic field, possibly present in the photon-baryon fluid during the decoupling era, could have produced in the large-angle modes of the observed CMB temperature fluctuations maps. To…
We report on the results from two independent but complementary statistical analyses of the WMAP first-year data, based on the power spectrum and N-point correlation functions. We focus on large and intermediate scales (larger than about 3 degrees) and compare the observed data against Monte Carlo ensembles with WMAP-like properties. In both analyses, we measure the amplitudes of the large-scale fluctuations on opposing hemispheres and study the ratio of the two amplitudes. The power-spectrum analysis shows that this ratio for WMAP, as measured along the axis of maximum asymmetry, is high at t…
We investigate a possible asymmetry in the statistical properties of the cosmic microwave background temperature field and to do so we construct an estimator aiming at detecting a dipolar modulation. Such a modulation is found to induce correlations between multipoles with $Δ\ell=1$. Applying this estimator, to the V and W bands of the WMAP data, we found a significant detection in the V band. We argue however that foregrounds and in particular point sources are the origin of this signal.
The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) has a truly supersymmetric way to explain both the baryon asymmetry and cold dark matter in the present Universe, that is, ``Affleck-Dine baryo/DM-genesis.'' The associated late-time decay of Q-balls directly connects the origins of the baryon asymmetry and dark matter, and also predicts a specific nature of the LSP. In this paper, we investigate the prospects for indirect detection of these dark matter candidates observing high energy neutrino flux from the Sun, and hard positron flux from the halo. We also update the previous analysis of the d…
We apply the Gabor transform methodology proposed in (Hansen et al. 2002, 2003) to the WMAP data in order to test the statistical properties of the CMB fluctuation field and specifically to evaluate the fundamental assumption of cosmological isotropy. We estimate the angular power spectrum locally in discs of various sizes positioned in different directions. We determine whether the spatial position of a few outliers in the angular power spectrum could suggest the presence of residual foregrounds or systematic effects. For multipoles close to the first peak, the most deviant local estimates fr…
Motivated by the large-scale asymmetry observed in the cosmic microwave background sky, we consider a specific class of anisotropic cosmological models -- Bianchi type VII_h -- and compare them to the WMAP first-year data on large angular scales. Remarkably, we find evidence of a correlation which is ruled out as a chance alignment at the 3sigma level. The best fit Bianchi model corresponds to x=0.55, Omega_0=0.5, a rotation axis in the direction (l,b)=(222degr,-62degr), shear (sigma/H)_0=2.4e-10 and a right--handed vorticity (omega/H)_0=6.1e-10. Correcting for this component greatly reduces t…
Within the standard big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) framework, the baryon density measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) or the primordial D abundance is much higher than the one measured by the $^4$He or $^7$Li abundances. To solve the discrepancy, we propose a scenario in which additional baryons appear after BBN. We show that simply adding the baryons can not be a solution but the existence of a large lepton asymmetry before BBN makes the scenario successful. These extra baryons and leptons, in addition to the initial baryons which e…
We investigate two sets of two-epoched reionization models and their manifestation in the CMB anisotropy and polarization data of the recent WMAP project and make some predictions for the future PLANCK missions. In the first set of models, the universe was reionized twice, first at z~15 by population III stars and then at z~6 by stars in large galaxies. In the second set of models, the extra peak-like reionization at high redshifts z > 100 is induced by the decay of unstable particles, followed by the standard picture of reionization at z~6. We examine the general properties of these two-epoch…
We present an application of the fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA) to the WMAP 3yr data with the goal of extracting the CMB signal. We evaluate the confidence of our results by means of Monte Carlo simulations including CMB, foreground contaminations and instrumental noise specific of each WMAP frequency band. We perform a complete analysis involving all or a subset of the WMAP channels in order to select the optimal combination for CMB extraction, using the frequency scaling of the reconstructed component as a figure of merit. We found that the combination KQVW provides the best C…
WMAP observations at mm wavelengths are sensitive to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in galaxy clusters. Among all the objects in the sky, the Virgo cluster is expected to provide the largest integrated signal. Based on models compatible with the X-ray emission observed in the ROSAT All Sky Survey, we predict a two-sigma detection of the SZ effect from Virgo in the WMAP 3-year data. Our analysis reveals a 3-sigma signal on scales of 5 degrees, although the frequency dependence deviates from the theoretical expectation for the SZ effect. The main sources of uncertainty are instrumental noise, and…
We have derived whole-sky CMB polarization maps from the WMAP 5 year polarization data, using the Harmonic Internal Linear Combination (HILC) method. Our HILC method incorporates spatial variability of linear weights in a natural way and yields continuous linear weights over the entire sky. To estimate the power spectrum of HILC maps, we have derived a unbiased quadratic estimator, which is similar to the WMAP team's cross power estimator, but in a more convenient form for HILC maps. From our CMB polarization map, we have obtained TE correlation and E mode power spectra without applying any ma…
We present new RATAN-600 data on the synchrotron Galaxy radiation at the PLANCK Mission and WMAP frequencies at high Galactic latitudes upto l=3000. The difference between the standard synchrotron template (l<50) of the WMAP group and RATAN-600 data was detected with the strong synchrotron ``longitude quadrant asymmetry''. It may change the WMAP estimates of z_{reheating} from low l polarization data. The polarized synchrotron noise for very deep observations (<< 1 microK) at the PLANCK HFI was not detected at l>200 scales. ``Sakharov Oscillations'' in the E-mode (500<l<2000) should be well vi…
The recent analysis of the cosmic microwave background data carried out by the WMAP team seems to show that the sum of the neutrino masses is <0.7 eV. However, this result is not model-independent, depending on precise assumptions on the cosmological model. We study how this result is modified when the assumption of perfect lepton symmetry is dropped out.
We search for the presence of cosmological neutrino background (CNB) anisotropies in recent WMAP 5-year data using their signature imprinted on modifications to cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum. By parametrizing the neutrino background anisotropies with the speed viscosity parameter $c_\vis$, we find that the WMAP 5-year data alone provide only a weak indication for CNB anisotropies with $c_\vis^2 > 0.06$ at the 95% confidence level. When we combine CMB anisotropy data with measurements of galaxy clustering, SN-Ia Hubble diagram, and other cosmological information, t…
We present a new method to extract the beam shape incorporated in the pixelized map of CMB experiments. This method is based on the interplay of the amplitudes and phases of the signal and instrumental noise. By adding controlled white noise onto the map, the phases are perturbed in such a way that the beam shape manifests itself through the mean-squared value of the difference between original and perturbed phases. This method is useful in extracting preliminary antenna beam shape without time-consuming spherical harmonic computations.
We present constraints on the cosmological and reionization parameters based on the cumulative mass function of the Ly-alpha systems. We find that the analysis of the cumulative mass function of the Ly-alpha systems indicates a reionization redshift z_r=24.2\+-4 (68%CL) in agreement with the value found on the basis of the WMAP anisotropy measurements, setting constraints on the amplitude of the density contrast, sigma_8=0.91+-0.04 (68\CL), similar to those derived from the X-ray cluster temperature function. Our joint analysis of Ly-alpha cumulative mass function and WMAP anisotropy measureme…
We report a search for signatures of cosmic strings in the the Cosmic Microwave Background data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. We used a digital filter designed to search for individual cosmic strings and found no evidence for them in the WMAP CMB anisotropies to a level of $ΔT/T \sim 0.29$ mK. This corresponds to an absence of cosmic strings with $ Gμ\ga 1.07 \times 10^{-5}$ for strings moving with velocity $v = c/\sqrt{2}$. Unlike previous work, this limit does not depend on an assumed string abundance. We have searched the WMAP data for evidence of a cosmic string recently r…
We studied the WMAP temperature anisotropy data using two different methods. The derived signal gradient maps show regions with low mean gradients in structures near the ecliptic poles and higher gradient values in the wide ecliptic equatorial zone, being the result of non-uniform observational time sky coverage. We show that the distinct observational time pattern present in the raw (cleaned) data leaves also its imprints on the composite CMB maps. Next, studying distribution of the signal dispersion we show that the north-south asymmetry of the WMAP signal diminishes with galactic altitude, …
We quantify the extent to which extra relativistic energy density can be concealed by a neutrino asymmetry without conflicting with the baryon asymmetry measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). In the presence of a large electron neutrino asymmetry, slightly more than seven effective neutrinos are allowed by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and WMAP at 2σ. The same electron neutrino degeneracy that reconciles the BBN prediction for the primordial helium abundance with the observationally inferred value also reconciles the LSND neutrino with BBN by suppressing its thermalizati…
We study a class of N=1 Supergravity inflationary models in which the evolution of the inflaton dynamics is controlled by a single power in the inflaton field at the point where the observed density fluctuations are produced, in the context of the braneworld scenario, in light of WMAP results. In particular, we find that the bounds on the spectral index and its running constrain the parameter space both for models where the inflationary potential is dominated by a quadratic term and by a cubic term in the inflaton field. We also find that $α_s>0$ is required for the quadratic model whereas $α_…
We reconsider the original model of quadratic hybrid inflation in light of the WMAP three-year results and study the possibility of obtaining a spectral index of primordial density perturbations, $n_s$, smaller than one from this model. The original hybrid inflation model naturally predicts $n_s\geq1$ in the false vacuum dominated regime but it is also possible to have $n_s<1$ when the quadratic term dominates. We therefore investigate whether there is also an intermediate regime compatible with the latest constraints, where the scalar field value during the last 50 e-folds of inflation is les…
The first year WMAP measurement of the CMB temperature anisotropy is intriguingly consistent with a larger running of the inflationary scalar spectral index than would be expected for single-field inflation. We revisit the issue of a large running spectral index, first by reexamining the evidence from the data, and then by reconstructing the inflationary potential, using an improved method based upon the Hamilton-Jacobi formulation. We note that a spectrum which runs only over 1.5 decades of k space provides as good a fit to the CMB data as one which runs at all k, that significant evidence fo…
The possibility that the cosmic variance outliers present in the recently released WMAP multipole moments are due to oscillations in the primordial power spectrum is investigated. Since the most important contribution to the WMAP likelihood originates from the outliers at relatively small angular scale (around the first Doppler peak), special attention is paid to these in contrast with previous studies on the subject which have concentrated on the large scales outliers only (i.e. the quadrupole and octupole). As a physically motivated example, the case where the oscillations are of trans-Planc…
We use the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data on the spectrum of cosmic microwave background anisotropies to put constraints on the present amount of lepton asymmetry L, parameterized by the dimensionless chemical potential (also called degeneracy parameter) xi and on the effective number of relativistic particle species. We assume a flat cosmological model with three thermally distributed neutrino species having all the same mass and chemical potential, plus an additional amount of effectively massless exotic particle species. The extra energy density associated to these species…
We study the impact of cosmological parameters' uncertainties on estimates of the primordial NG parameter f_NL in local and equilateral models of non-Gaussianity. We show that propagating these errors increases the f_NL relative uncertainty by 16% for WMAP and 5 % for Planck in the local case, whereas for equilateral configurations the correction term are 14% and 4%, respectively. If we assume for local f_NL a central value of order 60, according to recent WMAP 5-years estimates, we obtain for Planck a final correction Δf_NL = 3. Although not dramatic, this correction is at the level of the ex…
