Quantum fast-roll initial conditions for the inflaton which are different from the classical fast-roll conditions and from the quantum slow-roll conditions can lead to inflation that last long enough. These quantum fast-roll initial conditions for the inflaton allow for kinetic energies of the same order of the potential energies and nonperturbative inflaton modes with nonzero wavenumbers. Their evolution starts with a transitory epoch where the redshift due to the expansion succeeds to assemble the quantum excited modes of the inflaton in a homogeneous (zero mode) condensate, and the large value of the Hubble parameter succeeds to overdamp the fast-roll of the redshifted inflaton modes. After this transitory stage the effective classical slow-roll epoch is reached. Most of the efolds are produced during the slow-roll epoch and we recover the classical slow-roll results for the scalar and tensor metric perturbations plus corrections. These corrections are important, both for scalar and for tensor perturbations, if scales which are horizon-size today exited the horizon by the end of the transitory stage and as a consequence the lower CMB multipoles get suppressed (fast-roll) or enhanced (precondensate). These two types of corrections can compete and combine in a scale dependent manner. They arise as natural consequences of the quantum nonperturbative inflaton dynamics, and provide a consistent and contrastable model for the origin of the suppression of the quadrupole and for other departures of the low CMB multipoles from the slow-roll inflation-LambdaCMB model which are to be contrasted to the TE and EE multipoles and to the forthcoming and future CMB data.
Within the effective field theory of inflation, an initialization of the classical dynamics of the inflaton with approximate equipartition between the kinetic and potential energy of the inflaton leads to a brief fast roll stage that precedes the slow roll regime. The fast roll stage leads to an attractive potential in the wave equations for the mode functions of curvature and tensor perturbations. The evolution of the inflationary perturbations is equivalent to the scattering by this potential and a useful dictionary between the scattering data and observables is established.Implementing meth…
We construct a string-inspired nonsingular cosmological scenario in which an inflaton field is driven up the potential before the graceful exit by employing a low-energy string effective action with an orbifold compactification. This sets up an initial condition for the inflaton to lead to a sufficient amount of $e$-foldings and to generate a nearly scale-invariant primordial density perturbation during slow-roll inflation. Our scenario provides an interesting possibility to explain a suppressed power spectrum at low multipoles due to the presence of the modulus-driven phase prior to slow-roll…
Generically,the classical evolution of the inflaton has a brief fast roll stage that precedes the slow roll regime. The fast roll stage leads to a purely attractive potential for the curvature and tensor perturbations (this potential is purely repulsive in slowroll). This attractive potential depresses the CMB quadrupole moment for the curvature and B-mode spectra. A single new cosmological parameter emerges: the comoving wavenumber k_1 characteristic scale of this attractive potential.k_1 happens to exit the horizon precisely at the transition from fast to slowroll.The fastroll stage dynamica…
We show that the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect caused by hot electrons in the Local Supercluster (LSC) can explain the abnormal quadrupole and octopole of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that were measured by WMAP and COBE. The distortion needed to account for the low observed quadrupole is a spot in the direction of the LSC with a temperature decrease of order ΔT \approx - 7 μK for ν~ 20 -- 90 Ghz photons. The temperature and density of the hot gas which can generate such an effect are consistent with observations of the X-ray background. If this hypothetic foreground is subtracted f…
The recent three-year WMAP data have confirmed the anomaly concerning the low quadrupole amplitude compared to the best-fit ΛCDM prediction. We show that, allowing the large-scale spatial geometry of our universe to be plane-symmetric with eccentricity at decoupling or order 10^{-2}, the quadrupole amplitude can be drastically reduced without affecting higher multipoles of the angular power spectrum of the temperature anisotropy.
Copi, Huterer, Starkman and Schwarz introduced multipole vectors in a tensor context and used them to demonstrate that the first-year WMAP quadrupole and octopole planes align at roughly the 99.9% confidence level. In the present article the language of polynomials provides a new and independent derivation of the multipole vector concept. Bezout's Theorem supports an elementary proof that the multipole vectors exist and are unique (up to rescaling). The constructive nature of the proof leads to a fast, practical algorithm for computing multipole vectors. We illustrate the algorithm by finding …
We investigate the issue of initial conditions of curvature and tensor perturba- tions at the beginning of slow roll inflation and their effect on the power spectra. Renormalizability and small back reaction constrain the high k behavior of the Bogoliubov coefficients that define these initial conditions.We introduce a transfer function D(k) which encodes the effect of generic initial conditions on the power spectra. The constraint from renormalizability and small back reaction entails that D(k) < mu^2/k^2 for large k, implying that observable effects from initial conditions are more prominent…
The temperature anisotropy power spectrum measured with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) at high multipoles is in spectacular agreement with an inflationary Lambda-dominated cold dark matter cosmology. However, the low order multipoles (especially the quadrupole) have lower amplitudes than expected from this cosmology, indicating a need for new physics. Here we speculate that the low quadrupole amplitude is associated with spatial curvature. We show that positively curved models are consistent with the WMAP data and that the quadrupole amplitude can be reproduced if the primordi…
We introduce new, low-$\ell$, multipole vectors for the CMB temperature fluctuations. A very strong alignment of the quadrupole and octopole vectors is observed as well as a remarkably low declination of these vectors with respect to the galactic plane.
We discuss the problem of the bias of the Internal Linear Combination (ILC) CMB map and show that it is closely related to the coefficient of cross-correlation K(l) of the true CMB and the foreground for each multipole l. We present analysis of the cross-correlation for the WMAP ILC quadrupole and octupole from the first (ILC(I)) and the third (ILC(III)) year data releases and show that these correlations are about -0.52-0.6. Analysing 10^4 Monte Carlo simulations of the random Gaussian CMB signals, we show that the distribution function for the corresponding coefficient of the cross-correlati…
The recently re-discovered multipole vector approach to understanding the harmonic decomposition of the cosmic microwave background traces its roots to Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Taking Maxwell's directional derivative approach as a starting point, the present article develops a fast algorithm for computing multipole vectors, with an exposition that is both simpler and better motivated than in the author's previous work. Tests show the resulting algorithm, coded up as a Mathematica notebook, to be both fast and robust. This article serves to announce the free availability…
Inflationary predictions for the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) are often based on the slow-roll approximation. We study the precision with which the multipole moments of the temperature two-point correlation function can be predicted by means of the slow-roll approximation. We ask whether this precision is good enough for the forthcoming high precision observations by means of the MAP and Planck satellites. The error in the multipole moments due to the slow-roll approximation is demonstrated to be bigger than the error in the power spectrum. For power-law infla…
We emphasize that the estimation of cosmological parameters from cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data, such as the recent high resolution maps from BOOMERanG and MAXIMA-1, requires assumptions about the primordial spectra. The latter are predicted from inflation. The physically best-motivated scenario is that of slow-roll inflation. However, very often, the unphysical power-law inflation scenario is (implicitly) assumed in the CMB data analysis. We show that the predicted multipole moments differ significantly in both cases. We identify several misconceptions present in the litera…
General relativistic deflection of light by mass, dipole, and quadrupole moments of gravitational field of a moving massive planet in the Solar system is derived. All terms of order 1 microarcsecond are taken into account, parametrized, and classified in accordance with their physical origin. We calculate the instantaneous patterns of the light-ray deflections caused by the monopole, the dipole and the quadrupole moments, and derive equations describing apparent motion of the deflected position of the star in the sky plane as the impact parameter of the light ray with respect to the planet cha…
We discuss how an extended foreground of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can account for the anomalies in the low multipoles of the CMB anisotropies. The distortion needed to account for the anomalies is consistent with a cold spot with the spatial geometry of the Local Supercluster (LSC) and a temperature quadrupole of order DeltaT_2^2 ~ 50 microK^2. If this hypothetic foreground is subtracted from the CMB data, the amplitude of the quadrupole (l=2) is substantially increased, and the statistically improbable alignment of the quadrupole with the octopole (l=3) is substantially weakened,…
The low quadrupole of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), measured by COBE and confirmed by WMAP, has generated much discussion recently. We point out that the well-known correlation between temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB further constrains the low multipole anisotropy data. This correlation originates from the fact that the low-multipole polarization signal is sourced by the CMB quadrupole as seen by free electrons during the relatively recent cosmic history. Consequently, the large-angle temperature anisotropy data make restrictive predictions for the large-angle pol…
The amplitudes of the quadrupole and octopole measured from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) appear to be lower than expected according to the concordance Lambda CDM cosmology. However, the pseudo-Cl estimator used by the WMAP team is non-optimal. In this paper, we discuss the effects of Galactic cuts on pseudo-Cl and quadratic maximum likelihood estimators. An application of a quadratic maximum likelihood estimator to Galaxy subtracted maps produced by the WMAP team and Tegmark, de Oliveira-Costa and Hamilton (2003) shows that the amplitudes of the low multipoles are stable to …
The low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy possess some strange properties like the alignment of the quadrupole and the octopole, and the extreme planarity or the extreme sphericity of some multipoles, respectively. In this paper the CMB anisotropy of several multi-connected space forms is investigated with respect to the maximal angular momentum dispersion and the Maxwellian multipole vectors in order to settle the question whether such spaces can explain the low multipole anomalies in the CMB.
We apply the recently defined multipole vector framework to the frequency-specific first-year WMAP sky maps, estimating the low-l multipole coefficients from the high-latitude sky by means of a power equalization filter. While most previous analyses of this type have considered only heavily processed (and foreground-contaminated) full-sky maps, the present approach allows for greater control of residual foregrounds, and therefore potentially also for cosmologically important conclusions. The low-l spherical harmonics coefficients and corresponding multipole vectors are tabulated for easy refer…
We review Maxwell's multipole vectors, and elucidate some of their mathematical properties, with emphasis on the application of this tool to the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In particular, for a completely random function on the sphere (corresponding to the statistically isotropic Gaussian model of the CMB), we derive the full probability density function of the multipole vectors. This function is used to analyze the internal configurations of the third-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe quadrupole and octopole, and we show the observations are consistent with the Gaussian predict…
Based on quintessence models with anticorrelation between the quintessence fluctuations and adiabatic perturbations in the other matter components, we show that if the quintessence potential is sufficiently steep in the initial era, i.e., at the beginning of radiation dominated epoch, the quintessence fluctuations can be large enough to sufficiently suppress the CMB power spectrum at low multipoles without excess gravitational waves. The leaping kinetic term quintessence and the crossover quintessence models, can realize such steep potential at the initial stage, and therefore can give rise to…
Recent tentative findings of non-Gaussian structure in the COBE-DMR dataset have triggered renewed attention to candidate models from which such intrinsic signature could arise. In the framework of slow roll inflation with built-in non linearities in the inflaton field evolution we present expressions for both the cosmic microwave background (CMB) skewness and the full angular bispectrum ${\cal C}_{\ell_1 \ell_2 \ell_3}$ in terms of the slow roll parameters. We use an estimator for the angular bispectrum recently proposed in the literature and calculate its variance for an arbitrary $\ell_i$ m…
Recent analyses of the WMAP data have suggested that the low-order multipoles of the CMB anisotropy distribution show cosmologically interesting and unexpected morphologies and amplitudes. In this paper, we apply a power equalization (PE) filter to the high-latitude WMAP data in order to reconstruct these low-l multipoles free from the largest Galactic foreground modelling uncertainties in the Galactic plane. The characteristic spatial distributions of the modes of order l=2,3,4,5 have been determined as a function of frequency, sky coverage and two methods for foreground correction: using the…