We investigate a statistical anisotropy on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum, which can be generated from the primordial non-Gaussianity induced by quantum fluctuations of a vector field. We find new configurations in the multipole space of the CMB bispectrum given by $\ell_1 = \ell_2 + \ell_3 + 2, |\ell_2 - \ell_3| - 2$ and their permutations, which violate the rotational invariance, such as an off-diagonal configuration in the CMB power spectrum. We also find that in a model presented by Yokoyama and Soda (2008), the amplitude of the statistically anisotropic bispectrum in the above configurations becomes as large as that in other configurations such as $\ell_1 = \ell_2 + \ell_3$. As a result, it might be possible to detect these contributions in future experiments, which would give us novel information about the physics of the early Universe.
Inflation may provide a suitable collider to probe physics at very high energies. In this paper we investigate the impact on the CMB bispectrum of higher spin fields which are long-lived on super-Hubble scales, e.g. partially massless higher spin fields. We show that distinctive statistical anisotropic signals on the CMB three-point correlator are induced and we investigate their detectability.
We forecast the constraints on modified theories of gravity from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies bispectrum that arises from correlations between lensing and the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. In models of modified gravity the evolution of the metric potentials is generally altered and the contribution to the CMB bispectrum signal can differ significantly from the one expected in the standard cosmological model.We adopt a parametrised approach and focus on three different classes of models: Linder's growth index, Chameleon-type models and f(R) theories. We show that the cons…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum of the temperature anisotropies induced by a network of cosmic strings is derived for small angular scales, under the assumption that the principal cause of temperature fluctuations is the Gott-Kaiser-Stebbins (GKS) effect. We provide analytical expressions for all isosceles triangle configurations in Fourier space. Their overall amplitude is amplified as the inverse cube of the angle and diverges for flat triangles. The isosceles configurations generically lead to a negative bispectrum with a power law decay l^(-6) for large multipole l. Howeve…
We compute the cosmic microwave background temperature bispectrum generated by nonlinearities at recombination on all scales. We use CosmoLib$2^{\rm nd}$, a numerical Boltzmann code at second-order to compute CMB bispectra on the full sky. We consistently include all effects except gravitational lensing, which can be added to our result using standard methods. The bispectrum is peaked on squeezed triangles and agrees with the analytic approximation in the squeezed limit at the few per cent level for all the scales where this is applicable. On smaller scales, we recover previous results on pert…
We develop a methodology for estimating parity-odd bispectra in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This is achieved through the extension of the original separable modal methodology to parity-odd bispectrum domains ($\ell_1 + \ell_2 + \ell_3 = {\rm odd}$). Through numerical tests of the parity-odd modal decomposition with some theoretical bispectrum templates, we verify that the parity-odd modal methodology can successfully reproduce the CMB bispectrum, without numerical instabilities. We also present simulated non-Gaussian maps produced by modal-decomposed parity-odd bispectra, and show t…
We study the angular bispectrum of local type arising from the (possibly correlated) combination of a primordial adiabatic mode with an isocurvature one. Generically, this bispectrum can be decomposed into six elementary bispectra. We estimate how precisely CMB data, including polarization, can enable us to measure or constrain the six corresponding amplitudes, considering separately the four types of isocurvature modes (CDM, baryon, neutrino density, neutrino velocity). Finally, we discuss how the model-independent constraints on the bispectrum can be combined to get constraints on the parame…
Parity-odd non-Gaussianities create a variety of temperature bispectra in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), defined in the domain: $\ell_1 + \ell_2 + \ell_3 = {\rm odd}$. These models are yet unconstrained in the literature, that so far focused exclusively on the more common parity-even scenarios. In this work, we provide the first experimental constraints on parity-odd bispectrum signals in WMAP 9-year temperature data, using a separable modal parity-odd estimator. Comparing theoretical bispectrum templates to the observed bispectrum, we place constraints on the so-called nonlineality pa…
We investigate parity-violating signatures of temperature and polarization bispectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in an inflationary model where a rolling pseudoscalar produces large equilateral tensor non-Gaussianity. By a concrete computation based on full-sky formalism, it is shown that resultant CMB bispectra have nonzero signals in both parity-even $(\ell_1 + \ell_2 + \ell_3 = {\rm even})$ and parity-odd $(\ell_1 + \ell_2 + \ell_3 = {\rm odd})$ spaces, and are almost uncorrelated with usual scalar-mode equilateral bispectra. These characteristic signatures and polarization inf…
We consider a non-inflationary early Universe scenario in which relevant scalar perturbations get frozen out at some point, but then are defrosted and follow a long nearly Minkowskian evolution before the hot era. This intermediate stage leaves specific imprint on the CMB 3-point function, largely independent of details of microscopic physics. In particular, the CMB bispectrum undergoes oscillations in the multipole l space with roughly constant amplitude. The latter is in contrast to the oscillatory bispectrum enhanced in the flattened triangle limit, as predicted by inflation with non-Bunch-…
Although cosmological observations suggest that the fluctuations of seed fields are almost Gaussian, the possibility of a small deviation of their fields from Gaussianity is widely discussed. Theoretically, there exist numerous inflationary scenarios which predict large and characteristic non-Gaussianities in the primordial perturbations. These model-dependent non-Gaussianities act as sources of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum; therefore, the analysis of the CMB bispectrum is very important and attractive in order to clarify the nature of the early Universe. Currently, the imp…
Measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum, or three-point correlation function, has now become one of the principle efforts in early-Universe cosmology. Here we show that there is a odd-parity component of the CMB bispectrum that has been hitherto unexplored. We argue that odd-parity temperature-polarization bispectra can arise, in principle, through weak lensing of the CMB by chiral gravitational waves or through cosmological birefringence, although the signals will be small even in the best-case scenarios. Measurement of these bispectra requires only modest modification…
We study the parity violation in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum induced by primordial magnetic fields (PMFs). Deriving a general formula for the CMB bispectrum generated from not only non-helical but also helical PMFs, we find that helical PMFs produce characteristic signals, which disappear in parity-conserving cases, such as the intensity-intensity-intensity bispectra arising from $\sum_{n=1}^3 \ell_n = {\rm odd}$. For fast numerical calculation of the CMB bispectrum, we reduce the one-loop formula to the tree-level one by using the so-called pole approximation. Then, we sh…
The first year of observations by the Planck satellite mission shows that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations are consistent with gaussian statistics in the primordial perturbations, a key prediction of the simplest models of inflation. However, there are hints of anomalies in the CMB power spectrum and bispectrum. We check for the possibility that some of these anomalous features have a common physical origin in a transient reduction of the inflaton speed of sound. We do this by exploiting predicted correlations between the power spectrum and bispectrum. Our results suggest tha…
We study the effect of weak lensing by cosmic (super-)strings on the higher-order statistics of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). A cosmic string segment is expected to cause weak lensing as well as an integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, the so-called Gott-Kaiser-Stebbins (GKS) effect, to the CMB temperature fluctuation, which are thus naturally cross-correlated. We point out that, in the presence of such a correlation, yet another kind of the post-recombination CMB temperature bispectra, the ISW-lensing bispectra, will arise in the form of products of the auto- and cross-power spectra. …
In this paper we compute the CMB bispectrum for bouncing models motivated by Loop Quantum Cosmology. Despite the fact that the primordial bispectrum of these models is decaying exponentially above a large pivot scale, we find that the cumulative signal-to-noise ratio of the bispectrum induced in the CMB from scales $\ell < 30$ is larger than $10$ in all cases of interest and therefore can, in principle, be detected in the Planck data.
We present a detailed calculation of our previous short paper [M. Shiraishi, D. Nitta, S. Yokoyama, K. Ichiki, and K. Takahashi, Phys. Rev. D 82, 121302 (2010).] in which we have investigated a constraint on the magnetic field strength through comic microwave background temperature bispectrum of vector modes induced from primordial magnetic fields. By taking into account full angular dependence of the bispectrum with spin spherical harmonics and Wigner symbols, we explicitly show that the cosmic microwave background bispectrum induced from the statistical-isotropic primordial vector fluctuatio…
We investigate the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectra of the intensity (temperature) and polarization modes induced by the graviton non-Gaussianities, which arise from the parity-conserving and parity-violating Weyl cubic terms with time-dependent coupling. By considering the time-dependent coupling, we find that even in the exact de Sitter space time, the parity violation still appears in the three-point function of the primordial gravitational waves and could become large. Through the estimation of the CMB bispectra, we demonstrate that the signals generated from the parity-conservi…
We discuss detectability of the nonlinear growth of the large-scale structure in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing. Lensing signals involved in CMB anisotropies have been measured from multiple CMB experiments, such as Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), Planck, POLARBEAR, and South Pole Telescope (SPT). Reconstructed lensing signals are useful to constrain cosmology via their angular power spectrum, while detectability and cosmological application of their bispectrum induced by the nonlinear evolution are not well studied. Extending the analytic estimate of the galaxy lensing bispe…
We compute the full cosmic microwave background temperature bispectrum generated by nonlinearities after single-field inflation. By integrating the photon temperature at second order along a perturbed geodesic in Newtonian gauge, we derive an expression for the observed temperature fluctuations that, for the first time, clarifies the separation of the gravitational lensing and time-delay effects from the purely second-order contributions. We then use the second-order Boltzmann code CosmoLib$2^{\rm nd}$ to calculate these contributions and their bispectrum. Including the perturbations in the ph…
In this short note we translate the best available observational bounds on the CMB bispectrum amplitudes into constraints on a specific scale-invariant New Physics Hypersurface (NPH) model of vacuum state modifications, as first proposed by Danielsson, in general models of single-field inflation. As compared to the power spectrum the bispectrum constraints are less ambiguous and provide an interesting upper bound on the cut-off scale in general models of single-field inflation with a small speed of sound. This upper bound is incompatible with the power spectrum constraint for most of the param…
We compute the bispectrum induced in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarisation by the evolution of the primordial density perturbations using the second-order Boltzmann code SONG. We show that adding polarisation increases the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor four with respect to temperature alone and we estimate the observability of this intrinsic bispectrum and the bias it induces on measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity. When including all physical effects except the late-time non-linear evolution, we find for the intrinsic bispectrum a signal-to-noise of $S/N…
We present an all-sky formalism for the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) bispectrum induced by the primordial non-Gaussianities not only in scalar but also in vector and tensor fluctuations. We find that the bispectrum can be formed in an explicitly rationally invariant way by taking into account the angular and polarization dependences of the vector and tensor modes. To demonstrate this and present how to use our formalism, we consider a specific example of the correlation between two scalars and a graviton as the source of non-Gaussianity. As a result, we show that the CMB reduced bispectru…
We study cosmological perturbations by solving the governing Boltzmann and Einstein Field equations up to second order, and calculate the corresponding CMB bispectrum during recombination. We include all the second-order Liouville and collision terms, truncating the multipole hierarchy at $l=10$, consistently including all $m\neq 0$ terms when calculating the bispectrum in the flat-sky limit. At this stage, we focus on contributions at recombination and we neglect 2nd-order vector and tensor terms, lensing effects, and late time non-linear ISW. We find that the signal-to-noise for the bispectr…
We study the effects of Lorentz symmetry violation on the scalar CMBR bispectrum. Our quantitative results show that there can be enhancements in the bispectrum for specific configurations in momentum space, when the modified dispersion relations resulting from the symmetry breaking violate the adiabatic condition for a short period of time in the early Universe. The kind of configurations that are enhanced and the pattern of oscillations in wavenumbers that generically appear in the bispectrum strictly depend on the form of the modified dispersion relation, and therefore on the pattern of Lor…
The small-scale CMB temperature we observe on the sky is modulated by perturbations that were super-horizon at recombination, giving differential focussing and lensing that generate a non-zero bispectrum even for single-field inflation where local physics is identical. Understanding this signal is important for primordial non-Gaussianity studies and also parameter constraints from the CMB lensing bispectrum signal. Because of cancellations individual effects can appear larger or smaller than they are in total, so a full analysis may be required to avoid biases. I relate angular scales on the s…
The CMB bispectrum generated by second-order effects at recombination can be calculated analytically when one of the three modes has a wavelength much longer than the other two and is outside the horizon at recombination. This was pointed out in \cite{Creminelli:2004pv} and here we correct their results. We derive a simple formula for the bispectrum, $f_{NL}^{loc} = - (1/6+ \cos 2 θ) \cdot (1- 1/2 \cdot d \ln (l_S^2 C_{S})/d \ln l_S)$, where $C_S$ is the short scale spectrum and $θ$ the relative orientation between the long and the short modes. This formula is exact and takes into account all …
We investigate bounds on the strength of the primordial magnetic field (PMF) from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectra of the intensity (temperature) modes induced from the auto- and cross-correlated bispectra of the scalar and tensor components of the PMF anisotropic stress. At first, we construct a general formula for the CMB intensity and polarization bispectra from PMFs composed of any type of perturbation. Then we derive an approximate expression which traces the exact shape of the CMB bispectrum in order to reduce the computation time with respect to a large number of the mult…
Primordial magnetic fields lead to non-Gaussian signals in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) even at the lowest order, as magnetic stresses, and the temperature anisotropy they induce, depend quadratically on the magnetic field. In contrast, CMB non-Gaussianity due to inflationary scalar perturbations arise only as a higher order effect. We propose here a novel probe of stochastic primordial magnetic fields that exploits the characteristic CMB non-Gaussianity that they induce. In particular, we compute the CMB bispectrum ($b_{l_{_1}l_{_2}l_{_3}}$) induced by stochastic primordial fields on…
Minimum-variance estimators for the parameter fnl that quantifies local-model non-Gaussianity can be constructed from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum (three-point function) and also from the trispectrum (four-point function). Some have suggested that a comparison between the estimates for the values of fnl from the bispectrum and trispectrum allow a consistency test for the model. But others argue that the saturation of the Cramer-Rao bound by the bispectrum estimator implies that no further information on fnl can be obtained from the trispectrum. Here we elaborate the nature …
We use analytic calculations of the post-recombination gravitational effects of cosmic strings to estimate the resulting CMB power spectrum, bispectrum and trispectrum. We place a particular emphasis on multipole regimes relevant for forthcoming CMB experiments, notably the Planck satellite. These calculations use a flat sky approximation, generalising previous work by integrating string contributions from last scattering to the present day, finding the dominant contributions to the correlators for multipoles l > 50. We find a well-behaved shape for the string bispectrum (without divergences) …
In this paper we combine partial-wave (`modal') methods with a wavelet analysis of the CMB bispectrum. Our implementation exploits the advantages of both approaches to produce robust, reliable and efficient estimators which can constrain the amplitude of arbitrary primordial bispectra. This will be particularly important for upcoming surveys such as \emph{Planck}. A key advantage is the computational efficiency of calculating the inverse covariance matrix in wavelet space, producing an error bar which is close to optimal. We verify the efficacy and robustness of the method by applying it to WM…
Gravitational waves from inflation induce polarization patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It is known that there are only two types of non-Gaussianities of the gravitaional waves in the most general scalar field theories having second-order field equations. One originates from the inherent non-Gaussianity in general relativity, and the other from a derivative coupling between the Einstein tensor and a kinetic term of the scalar field. We calculate polarization bispectra induced by these non-Gaussianities by transforming them into separable forms by virtue of the Laplace transfo…
Non-linear effects in the early Universe generate non-zero bispectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization, even in the absence of primordial non-Gaussianity. In this paper, we compute the contributions from isocurvature modes to the CMB bispectra using a modified version of the second-order Boltzmann solver SONG. We investigate the ability of current and future CMB experiments to constrain these modes with observations of the bispectrum. Our results show that the enhancement due to single isocurvature modes mixed with the adiabatic mode is negligible for the pa…
Recent progress in high sensitivity Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization experiments opens up a window on large scale structure (LSS), as CMB polarization fluctuations on small angular scales can arise from a combination of LSS and ionization fluctuations in the late universe. Gravitational lensing effects can be extracted from CMB datasets with quadratic estimators but reconstructions of electron density fluctuations (EDFs) with quadratic estimators are found to be significantly biased by the much larger lensing effects in the secondary CMB fluctuations. In this paper we establish a…
Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing measurements and tomographic galaxy surveys are expected to provide us with high-precision data sets in the coming years, thus paving the way for fruitful cross-correlation analyses. In this paper we study the information content of the weighted skew-spectrum, a nearly-optimal estimator of the angular bispectrum amplitude, as a means to extract non-Gaussian information on both bias and cosmological parameters from the bispectra of galaxies cross-correlated with CMB lensing, while gaining significantly on speed. Our results show that for the co…
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effects are produced by the interaction of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons with the ionized and diffuse gas of electrons inside galaxy clusters integrated along the line of sight. The two main effects are the thermal SZ (tSZ) produced by thermal pressure inside galaxy clusters and the kinetic SZ (kSZ) produce by peculiar motion of galaxy clusters compared to CMB rest-frame. The kSZ effect is particularly challenging to measure as it follows the same spectral behavior as the CMB, and consequently can not be separated from the CMB using spectral consideratio…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature bispectrum is currently the most precise tool for constraining primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). The Planck temperature data tightly constrain the amplitude of local-type NG: $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc} = 2.5 \pm 5.7$. Here, we compute previously-neglected foreground biases in temperature-based $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc}$ measurements, due to the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, gravitational lensing, the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects, and the cosmic infrared background. While standard analyses already subtract a significant bias on …
We present a detailed implementation of two bispectrum estimation methods which can be applied to general non-separable primordial and CMB bispectra. The method exploits bispectrum mode decompositions on the domain of allowed wavenumber or multipole values. Concrete mode examples constructed from symmetrised tetrahedral polynomials are given, demonstrating rapid convergence for known bispectra. We use these modes to generate simulated CMB maps of high resolution (l > 2000) given an arbitrary primordial power spectrum and bispectrum or an arbitrary late-time CMB angular power spectrum and bispe…
We use a separable mode expansion estimator with WMAP data to estimate the bispectrum for all the primary families of non-Gaussian models. We review the late-time mode expansion estimator methodology which can be applied to any non-separable primordial and CMB bispectrum model, and we demonstrate how the method can be used to reconstruct the CMB bispectrum from an observational map. We extend the previous validation of the general estimator using local map simulations. We apply the estimator to the coadded WMAP 5-year data, reconstructing the WMAP bispectrum using $l<500$ multipoles and $n=31$…
We forecast the constraints on both Hu-Sawicki model and Bertschinger-Zukin model of modified gravity within the Parameterized Post-Friedmann (PPF) formalism for the Planck satellite experiment by performing the joint analysis of ISW-Lensing bispectrum and CMB power spectrum. We find that, even considering the temperature-temperature mode of CMB power spectrum only, Planck data are expected to reduce the error bars on the modified gravity parameter $B_0$ (related to the present value of Compton wavelength of the extra scalar degree of freedom) at least one order magnitude compared with WMAP. T…
In this paper we present the tools to optimally extract the Lensing-Integrated Sachs Wolfe (L-ISW) bispectrum signal from future CMB data. We implement two different methods to simulate the non-Gaussian CMB maps with the L-ISW signal: a non-perturbative method based on the FLINTS lensing code and the separable mode expansion method. We implement the Komatsu, Spergel and Wandelt (KSW) optimal estimator analysis for the Lensing-ISW bispectrum and we test it on the non-Gaussian simulations in the case of a realistic CMB experimental settings with an inhomogeneous sky coverage. We show that the es…
We revisit the predictions for the expected Cosmic Microwave Background bispectrum signal from the primary-lensing-Rees-Sciama correlation; we point out that it can be a significant contaminant to the bispectrum signal from primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type. This non-Gaussianity, usually parameterized by the non-Gaussian parameter f_NL, arises, for example, in multi-field inflation. In particular both signals are frequency independent, and are maximized for nearly squeezed configurations. While their detailed scale-dependence and harmonic imprints are different for generic bispectru…
Two of the most commonly used tools to constrain the primordial non-Gaussianity are the bispectrum and the Minkowski functionals of CMB temperature anisotropies. These two measures of non-Gaussianity in principle provide distinct (though correlated) information, but in the past constraints from them have only been loosely compared, and not statistically combined. In this work we evaluate, for the first time, the covariance matrix between the local non-Gaussianity coefficient fnl estimated through the bispectrum and Minkowski functionals. We find that the estimators are positively correlated, w…
Various data analyses of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provide observational hints of statistical isotropy breaking. Some of these features can be studied within the framework of primordial vector fields in inflationary theories which generally display some level of statistical anisotropy both in the power spectrum and in higher-order correlation functions. Motivated by these observations and the recent theoretical developments in the study of primordial vector fields, we develop the formalism necessary to extract statistical anisotropy information from the three-point function of the …
Cross-correlating the lensing signals of galaxies and comic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations is expected to provide valuable cosmological information. In particular it may help tighten constraints on parameters describing the properties of intrinsically aligned galaxies at high redshift. To access the information conveyed by the cross-correlation signal its accurate theoretical description is required. We compute the bias to CMB lensing-galaxy shape cross-correlation measurements induced by nonlinear structure growth. Using tree-level perturbation theory for the large-scale structure bi…
The measurements of the statistical properties of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuations enable us to probe the physics of the very early Universe especially at the epoch of inflation. A particular interest lays on the detection of the non-Gaussianity of the CMB as it can constrain the current proposed models of inflation and structure formation, or possibly point out new models. The current approach to measure the degree of non-Gaussianity of the CMB is to estimate a single parameter which is highly model-dependent. The bispectrum is a natural and widely studied tool for measuring…
The rapidly improving precision of measurements of gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) also requires a corresponding increase in the precision of theoretical modeling. A commonly made approximation is to model the CMB deflection angle or lensing potential as a Gaussian random field. In this paper, however, we analytically quantify the influence of the non-Gaussianity of large-scale structure lenses, arising from nonlinear structure formation, on CMB lensing measurements. In particular, evaluating the impact of the non-zero bispectrum of large-scale structure on the r…
We develop the tools necessary to assess the statistical significance of resonant features in the CMB correlation functions, combining power spectrum and bispectrum measurements. This significance is typically addressed by running a large number of simulations to derive the probability density function (PDF) of the feature-amplitude in the Gaussian case. Although these simulations are tractable for the power spectrum, for the bispectrum they require significant computational resources. We show that, by assuming that the PDF is given by a multi-variate Gaussian where the covariance is determine…
We calculate the bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies induced by the second-order fluctuations in the Boltzmann equation. In this paper, which is one of a series of papers on the numerical calculation of the bispectrum from the second-order fluctuations, we consider the terms that are products of the first-order perturbations, and leave intrinsically second-order terms and perturbations in the recombination history to the subsequent papers. We show that the bispectrum has the maximum signal in the squeezed triangles, similar to the local-type primordial …
We describe the details of the binned bispectrum estimator as used for the official 2013 and 2015 analyses of the temperature and polarization CMB maps from the ESA Planck satellite. The defining aspect of this estimator is the determination of a map bispectrum (3-point correlator) that has been binned in harmonic space. For a parametric determination of the non-Gaussianity in the map (the so-called fNL parameters), one takes the inner product of this binned bispectrum with theoretically motivated templates. However, as a complementary approach one can also smooth the binned bispectrum using a…
The CMB bispectrum is a potential window on exciting new physics, as it is sensitive to the non-Gaussian features in the primordial fluctuations, the same fluctuations that evolved into today's planets, stars and galaxies. However, this invaluable information is potentially screened, as not all of the observed non-Gaussianity is of primordial origin. Indeed, a bispectrum arises even for perfectly Gaussian initial conditions due to non-linear dynamics, such as CMB photons scattering off free electrons and propagating in an inhomogeneous Universe. In this thesis, I introduce the reader to this i…
We study the effects of instrumental systematics on the estimation of primordial non-Gaussianity using the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum from both the temperature and the polarization anisotropies. For temperature systematics we consider gain fluctuation and beam distortions. For polarization we consider effects related to known instrumental systematics: calibration, pixel rotation, differential gain, pointing, and ellipticity of the instrument beam. We consider these effects at next to leading order, which we refer to as non-linear systematic effects. We find that if the instru…
The nonlinear interaction between one graviton and two scalars is enhanced in specific inflationary models, potentially leading to distinguishable signatures in the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. We develop the tools to examine such bispectrum signatures, and show a first application using WMAP temperature data. We consider several $\ell$-ranges, estimating the $g_{tss}$ amplitude parameter, by means of the so-called separable modal methodology. We do not find any evidence of a tensor-scalar-scalar signal at any scale. Our tightest bound on the size of the te…
