We obtain a consistency relation for the observed three-point correlator of galaxies. It includes relativistic effects and it is valid in the squeezed limit. Furthermore, the consistency relation is non-perturbative and can be used at arbitrarily small scales for the short modes. Our results are also useful to compute the non-linear relativistic corrections which induce a signal in the observations that might be misinterpreted as primordial non-Gaussianity with a local shape. We estimate the effective local non-Gaussianity parameter from the relativistic corrections. The exact value depends on the redshift and the magnification bias. At redshift of $ z = 1$, in the absence of magnification bias, we get $\,\, f^{\rm GR}_{\rm NL} \simeq - 3.7 $.
We derive a formula for the halo/galaxy bispectrum on the basis of the integrated Perturbation Theory (iPT). In addition to the gravity-induced non-Gaussianity, we consider the non-Gaussianity of the primordial curvature perturbations, and investigate in detail the effect of such primordial non-Gaussianity on the large-scale halo/galaxy bispectrum. In iPT, the effects of primordial non-Gaussianity are wholly encapsulated in the linear (primordial) polyspectra, and we systematically calculate the contributions to the large-scale behaviors arising from the three types of primordial bispectrum (l…
We calculate tensor bispectrum in a theory of massive tensor gravitons which predicts blue-tilted and largely amplified primordial gravitational waves. We find that a new 3-point interaction can produce a larger tensor bispectrum than the conventional one from general relativity. The bispectrum peaks at the squeezed configuration and its slope towards the squeezed limit is determined by the graviton mass. This squeezed tensor bispectrum may be observed as the quadrupolar modulation of the tensor power spectrum by interferometers.
Measurements of the non-Gaussianity of the primordial density field have the power to considerably improve our understanding of the physics of inflation. Indeed, if we can increase the precision of current measurements by an order of magnitude, a null-detection would rule out many classes of scenarios for generating primordial fluctuations. Large-scale galaxy redshift surveys represent experiments that hold the promise to realise this goal. Thus, we model the galaxy bispectrum and forecast the accuracy with which it will probe the parameter $f_{\rm NL}$, which represents the degree of primordi…
Primordial non-Gaussianity can lead to a scale-dependent bias in the density of collapsed halos relative to the underlying matter density. The galaxy power spectrum already provides constraints on local-type primordial non-Gaussianity complementary those from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), while the bispectrum contains additional shape information and has the potential to outperform CMB constraints in future. We develop the bias model for the halo density contrast in the presence of local-type primordial non-Gaussianity, deriving a bivariate expansion up to second order in terms of the…
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…
We investigate the non-Gaussianity of primordial cosmological perturbations within our recently proposed holographic description of inflationary universes. We derive a holographic formula that determines the bispectrum of cosmological curvature perturbations in terms of correlation functions of a holographically dual three-dimensional non-gravitational quantum field theory (QFT). This allows us to compute the primordial bispectrum for a universe which started in a non-geometric holographic phase, using perturbative QFT calculations. Strikingly, for a class of models specified by a three-dimens…
We study parity violation in graviton non-gaussianity generated during inflation. We develop a useful formalism to calculate graviton non-gaussianity. Using this formalism, we explicitly calculate the parity violating part of the bispectrum for primordial gravitational waves in the exact de Sitter spacetime and prove that no parity violation appears in the non-gaussianity. We also extend the analysis to slow-roll inflation and find that the parity violation of the bispectrum is proportional to the slow-roll parameter. We argue that parity violating non-gaussianity can be tested by the CMB. Our…
We investigate the non-Gaussian signatures of ultra slow-roll inflation. The bispectrum and the trispectrum are calculated with general initial conditions. The trispectrum is of local shape, as in the case of the bispectrum. We show that the prediction of local non-Gaussianity is robust again generalizing the Bunch-Davies vacuum. The Suyama-Yamaguchi relation is saturated in this scenario.
We outline the expected constraints on non-Gaussianity from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with current and future experiments, focusing on both the third (f_{NL}) and fourth-order (g_{NL} and τ_{NL}) amplitudes of the local configuration or non-Gaussianity. The experimental focus is the skewness (two-to-one) and kurtosis (two-to-two and three-to-one) power spectra from weighted maps. In adition to a measurement of τ_{NL} and g_{NL} with WMAP 5-year data, our study provides the first forecasts for future constraints on g_{NL}. We describe how these statistics can be corrected for the ma…
The theory and methodology is developed to compute the bispectrum in warm inflation, leading to results for the non-linearity parameter and the shape of the bispectrum. Particular attention is paid to the study of the bispectrum in the regime of weak dissipation and how stochastic fluctuations affect the bispectrum. It is shown that, in contrast to the strong dissipative regime, the amplitude of non-Gaussianity is strongly dependent on the parameters governing the microscopic physics in the intermediate and weak dissipation warm inflation regimes. The most important results concern the shape o…
We calculate the three-point correlation function of the comoving curvature perturbation generated during an inflationary epoch driven by false vacuum energy. We get a novel false vacuum shape bispectrum, which peaks in the equilateral limit. Using this result, we propose a scenario which we call "old curvaton". The shape of the resulting bispectrum lies between the local and the false vacuum shapes. In addition we have a large running of the spectral index.
We demonstrate equivalence of the in-in formalism and Green's function method for calculating the bispectrum of primordial gravitational waves generated by vacuum fluctuations of the metric. The tree-level bispectrum from the field equation, $B_h$, agrees with the results obtained previously using the in-in formalism exactly. Characterising non-Gaussianity of the fluctuations using the ratio $B_h/P^2_h$ in the equilateral configuration, where $P_h$ is the power spectrum of scale-invariant gravitational waves, we show that it is much weaker than in models with spectator gauge fields. We also ca…
The bispectrum vanishes for linear Gaussian fields and is thus a sensitive probe of non-linearities and non-Gaussianities in the cosmic density field. Hence, a detection of the bispectrum in the halo density field would enable tight constraints on non-Gaussian processes in the early Universe and allow inference of the dynamics driving inflation. We present a tree level derivation of the halo bispectrum arising from non-linear clustering, non-linear biasing and primordial non-Gaussianity. A diagrammatic description is developed to provide an intuitive understanding of the contributing terms and…
Next-generation galaxy surveys will increasingly rely on the galaxy bispectrum to improve cosmological constraints, especially on primordial non-Gaussianity. A key theoretical requirement that remains to be developed is the analysis of general relativistic effects on the bispectrum, which arise from observing galaxies on the past lightcone, {as well as from relativistic corrections to the dynamics}. {As an initial step towards a fully relativistic analysis of the galaxy bispectrum, we compute for the first time the local relativistic lightcone effects on the bispectrum,} which come from Dopple…
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…
After reionisation, the 21cm emission line of neutral hydrogen within galaxies provides a tracer of dark matter. Next-generation intensity mapping surveys, with the SKA and other radio telescopes, will cover large sky areas and a wide range of redshifts, facilitating their use as probes of primordial non-Gaussianity. {Previous works have shown that the bispectrum can achieve tight constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity with future surveys that are purposely designed for intensity mapping in interferometer mode}. Here we investigate the constraints attainable from surveys operating in single…
Analytic formulas of Minkowski functionals in two-dimensional random fields are derived, including effects of second-order non-Gaussianity in the presence of both the bispectrum and trispectrum. The set of formulas provides a promising method to constrain the primordial non-Gaussianity of the universe by temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation. In a case of local-type non-Gaussianity, the Minkowski functionals are analytically given by powers of quadratic and cubic parameters, $f_{\rm NL}$ and $g_{\rm NL}$. Our formulas are not restricted to this particular model,…
In this review, we discuss how non-Gaussianity of cosmological perturbations arises from inflation. After introducing the in-in formalism to calculate the $n$-point correlation function of quantum fields, we present the computation of the bispectrum of the curvature perturbation generated in general single field inflation models. The shapes of the bispectrum are compared with the local-type non-Gaussianity that arises from non-linear dynamics on super-horizon scales.
In this work, we present a method for implementing the $δN$ formalism to study the primordial non-Gaussianity produced in multiple three-form field inflation. Using a dual description relating three-form fields to noncanonical scalar fields, and employing existing results, we produce expressions for the bispectrum of the curvature perturbation in terms of three-form quantities. We study the bispectrum generated in a two three-form field inflationary scenario for a particular potential that for suitable values of the parameters was found in earlier work to give values of the spectral index and …
Angular bispectrum and trispectrum of scalar-induced gravitational waves: all contributions from primordial non-Gaussianity $f_\mathrm{NL}$ and $g_\mathrm{NL}$
Next-generation galaxy and 21cm intensity mapping surveys will rely on a combination of the power spectrum and bispectrum for high-precision measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity. In turn, these measurements will allow us to distinguish between various models of inflation. However, precision observations require theoretical precision at least at the same level. We extend the theoretical understanding of the galaxy bispectrum by incorporating a consistent general relativistic model of galaxy bias at second order, in the presence of local primordial non-Gaussianity. The influence of primord…
The most direct probe of non-Gaussian initial conditions has come from bispectrum measurements of temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background and of the matter and galaxy distribution at large scales. Such bispectrum estimators are expected to continue to provide the best constraints on the non-Gaussian parameters in future observations. We review and compare the theoretical and observational problems, current results and future prospects for the detection of a non-vanishing primordial component in the bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background and large-scale structure, and…
It is well known that enhancement in the primordial scalar perturbations over small scales generates detectable amplitudes of secondary gravitational waves (GWs), by sourcing the tensor perturbations at the second order. These stochastic gravitational waves are expected to carry the imprints of primordial non-Gaussianities. The scalar bispectrum that is typically produced in models of inflation leading to significant secondary GWs is non-trivial and highly scale dependent. In this work, we present a method to account for such general scale dependent scalar bispectrum arising from inflationary …
Modeling the nonlinearity of the halo bispectrum remains a major challenge in modern cosmology, in particular for ongoing and upcoming large-scale structure observations that are performed to study the inflationary physics. The "power spectrum response" offers a solution for bispectrum in the so-called squeezed limit, in which one wavenumber is much smaller than the other two. As a first step, we demonstrate that the halo squeezed-limit bispectrum computed from the second-order standard perturbation theory agrees precisely with the responses of linear halo power spectrum to large-scale density…
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 forecast constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) and bias parameters from measurements of galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum in future radio continuum and optical surveys. In the galaxy bispectrum, we consider a comprehensive list of effects, including the bias expansion for non-Gaussian initial conditions up to second order, redshift space distortions, redshift uncertainties and theoretical errors. These effects are all combined in a single PNG forecast for the first time. Moreover, we improve the bispectrum modelling over previous forecasts, by accounting for trispectrum contrib…
The epoch of reionization (EoR) 21-cm signal is expected to be highly non-Gaussian in nature and this non-Gaussianity is also expected to evolve with the progressing state of reionization. Therefore the signal will be correlated between different Fourier modes ($k$). The power spectrum will not be able capture this correlation in the signal. We use a higher-order estimator -- the bispectrum -- to quantify this evolving non-Gaussianity. We study the bispectrum using an ensemble of simulated 21-cm signal and with a large variety of $k$ triangles. We observe two competing sources driving the non-…
We use the full bispectrum of spherical needlets applied to the WMAP data of the cosmic microwave background as an estimator for the primordial non-Gaussianity parameter f_NL. We use needlet scales up to l_max=1000 and the KQ75 galactic cut and find f_NL=84 +/- 40 corrected for point source bias. We also introduce a set of consistency tests to validate our results against the possible influence of foreground residuals or systematic errors. In particular, fluctuations in the value of f_NL obtained from different frequency channels, different masks and different multipoles are tested against sim…
We present the first halo model based description of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) non-Gaussianity (NG) that is fully parametric. To this end, we introduce, for the first time, a diagrammatic method to compute high order polyspectra of the 3D galaxy density field. It allows an easy derivation and visualisation of the different terms of the polyspectrum. We apply this framework to the power spectrum and bispectrum, and we show how to project them on the celestial sphere in the purpose of the application to the CIB angular anisotropies. Furthermore, we show how to take into account the pa…
We study scalar-tensor-tensor cross correlation $\langle ζhh \rangle$ generated by the dynamics of interacting axion and SU(2) gauge fields during inflation. We quantize the quadratic action and solve the linear equations by taking into account mixing terms in a non-perturbative manner. Combining that with the in-in formalism, we compute contributions from cubic interactions to the bispectrum $B_{ζhh}$. We find that the bispectrum is peaked at the folded configuration, which is a unique feature encoded by the scalar mixing and localized production of tensor modes. With our parameter choice, th…
High-precision constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) will significantly improve our understanding of the physics of the early universe. Among all the subtleties in using large scale structure observables to constrain PNG, accounting for relativistic corrections to the clustering statistics is particularly important for the upcoming galaxy surveys covering progressively larger fraction of the sky. We focus on relativistic projection effects due to the fact that we observe the galaxies through the light that reaches the telescope on perturbed geodesics. These projection effects can giv…
The population of compact extragalactic sources contribute to the non-Gaussianity at Cosmic Microwave Background frequencies. We study their non-Gaussianity using publicly available full-sky simulations. We introduce a parametrisation to visualise efficiently the bispectrum and we describe the scale and frequency dependences of the bispectrum of radio and IR point-sources. We show that the bispectrum is well fitted by an analytical prescription. We find that the clustering of IR sources enhances their non-Gaussianity by several orders of magnitude, and that their bispectrum peaks in the squeez…
The anisotropy of the redshift space bispectrum contains a wealth of cosmological information. This anisotropy depends on the orientation of three vectors ${\bf k_1,k_2,k_3}$ with respect to the line of sight. Here we have decomposed the redshift space bispectrum in spherical harmonics which completely quantify this anisotropy. To illustrate this we consider linear redshift space distortion of the bispectrum arising from primordial non-Gaussianity. In the plane parallel approximation only the first four even $\ell$ multipoles have non-zero values, and we present explicit analytical expressions…
Using a full analytical computation of the bispectrum based on the halo model together with the halo occupation number, we derive the bispectrum of the cos- mic infrared background (CIB) anisotropies that trace the clustering of dusty-star- forming galaxies. We focus our analysis on wavelengths in the far-infrared and the sub-millimeter typical of the Planck/HFI and Herschel/SPIRE instruments, 350, 550, 850, and 1380 um. We explore the bispectrum behaviour as a function of several models of evolution of galaxies and show that it is strongly sensitive to that ingredient. Contrary to the power s…
We study the non-Gaussianity generated during multiple-field inflation. We provide an exact expression for the bispectrum parameter f_NL which is valid beyond the slow-roll regime, valid for certain classes of inflationary models. We then study a new, exact multi-field inflationary model considering a case where the bispectrum grows to observable values at the end of inflation. We show that in this case the trispectrum is also large and may even provide the dominant signal of non-Gaussianity.
We compute the matter bispectrum in the presence of primordial local non-Gaussianity over a wide range of scales, including the very small nonlinear ones. We use the Halo Model approach, considering non-Gaussian corrections to the halo profiles, the halo mass function and the bias functions. We compare our results in the linear and mildly nonlinear scales to a large ensemble of Gaussian and non-Gaussian numerical simulations. We consider both squeezed and equilateral configurations, at redshift z = 0 and z = 1. For z = 0, the deviations between the Halo Model and the simulations are smaller th…
We study single field inflation in noncommutative spacetime and compute two-point and three-point correlation functions for the curvature perturbation. We find that both power spectrum and bispectrum for comoving curvature perturbation are statistically anisotropic and the bispectrum is also modified by a phase factor depending upon the noncommutative parameters. The non-linearity parameter $f_{NL}$ is small for small statistical anisotropic corrections to the bispectrum coming from the noncommutative geometry and is consistent with the recent PLANCK bounds. There is a scale dependence of $f_{…
We describe the details of the binned bispectrum estimator as used for the official 2013 and 2015 analyses of the temperature and polarization CMB maps from the ESA Planck satellite. The defining aspect of this estimator is the determination of a map bispectrum (3-point correlator) that has been binned in harmonic space. For a parametric determination of the non-Gaussianity in the map (the so-called fNL parameters), one takes the inner product of this binned bispectrum with theoretically motivated templates. However, as a complementary approach one can also smooth the binned bispectrum using a…
We show how consistency relations can be used to robustly extract the amplitude of local primordial non-Gaussianity ($f_{\rm NL}$) from the squeezed limit of the matter bispectrum, well into the non-linear regime. First, we derive a non-perturbative relation between primordial non-Gaussianity and the leading term in the squeezed bispectrum, revising some results present in the literature. This relation is then used to successfully measure $f_{\rm NL}$ from $N$-body simulations. We discuss the dependence of our results on different scale cuts and redshifts. Specifically, the analysis is strongl…
Primordial non-Gaussianity generated in an inflationary model where inflation is preceded by a radiation era is discussed. It is shown that both bispectrum and trispectrum non-Gaussianities are enhanced due to the presence of pre-inflationary radiation era. One distinguishing feature of such a scenario is that the trispectrum non-Gaussianity is larger than the bispectrum one.
Galaxy bispectrum is a promising probe of inflationary physics in the early universe as a measure of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG), whereas its signal-to-noise ratio is significantly affected by the mode coupling due to non-linear gravitational growth. In this paper, we examine the standard reconstruction method of linear cosmic mass density fields from non-linear galaxy density fields to de-correlate the covariance in redshift-space galaxy bispectra. In particular, we evaluate the covariance of the bispectrum for massive-galaxy-sized dark matter halos with reconstruction by using 4000 inde…
We calculate the bispectrum, B_g(k_1,k_2,k_3), Fourier transform of the three-point function of density peaks (e.g., galaxies), using two different methods: the Matarrese-Lucchin-Bonometto formula and the locality of galaxy bias. The bispectrum of peaks is not only sensitive to that of the underlying matter density fluctuations, but also to the four-point function. For a physically-motivated, local form of primordial non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbation, we show that the galaxy bispectrum contains five physically distinct pieces: (i) non-linear gravitational evolution, (ii) non-linear…
The forthcoming generation of wide-field galaxy surveys will probe larger volumes and galaxy densities, thus allowing for a much larger signal-to-noise ratio for higher-order clustering statistics, in particular the galaxy bispectrum. Extracting this information, however, is more challenging than using the power spectrum due to more complex theoretical modeling, as well as significant computational cost of evaluating the bispectrum signal and the error budget. To overcome these challenges, several proxy statistics have been proposed in the literature, which partially or fully capture the infor…
To investigate and specify the statistical properties of cosmological fields with particular attention to possible non-Gaussian features, accurate formulae for the bispectrum and the bispectrum covariance are required. The bispectrum is the lowest-order statistic providing an estimate for non-Gaussianities of a distribution, and the bispectrum covariance depicts the errors of the bispectrum measurement and their correlation on different scales. Currently, there do exist fitting formulae for the bispectrum and an analytical expression for the bispectrum covariance, but the former is not very ac…
If the graviton is the only high spin particle present during inflation, then the form of the observable tensor three-point function is fixed by de Sitter symmetry at leading order in slow-roll, regardless of the theory, to be a linear combination of two possible shapes. This is because there are only a fixed number of possible on-shell cubic structures through which the graviton can self-interact. If additional massive spin-2 degrees of freedom are present, more cubic interaction structures are possible, including those containing interactions between the new fields and the graviton, and self…
We discuss the possibility that we could obtain some hints of the heavy physics during inflation by analyzing local features of the primordial bispectrum. A heavy scalar field could leave large signatures in the primordial spectra through the parametric resonance between its background oscillation and the fluctuations. Since the duration of the heavy-mode oscillations is finite, the effect of the resonance is localized in momentum space. In this paper, we show that the bispectrum is amplified when such a resonance occurs, and that the peak amplitude of the feature can be O(10^{1-2}), or as lar…
We compute the model-independent contributions to the primordial bispectrum and trispectrum in de Sitter space due to high-energy physics. We do this by coupling a light inflaton to an auxiliary heavy field, and then evaluating correlation functions in the Schwinger-Keldysh "in-in" formalism. The high-energy physics produces corrections parametrized by $H/M$ where $H$ is the scale of inflation and $M$ is the mass of the heavy field. The bispectrum peaks near the elongated shape, but otherwise contains no features. The trispectrum receives no corrections at order $H/M$.
We compute the leading order non-Gaussianity, i.e., the bispectrum, of the tensor perturbation in the general $α$-vacuum on de Sitter space in general relativity. In addition to the well-known Bunch-Davies (BD) vacuum, there exits an infinite number of de Sitter invariant vacua represented by a real parameter $α$ and a phase $ϕ$, with $α=0$ being the BD vacuum. They are called $α$-vacua. In the standard slow-roll inflation, as de Sitter invariance no longer applies, the $α$-vacua lose its relevance in the rigorous sense. Nevertheless, if we assume that the parameter $α$ is only weakly dependen…
Non-Gaussianity may exist in the CDM isocurvature perturbation. We provide general expressions for the bispectrum and trispectrum of both adiabatic and isocurvature pertubations. We apply our result to the QCD axion case, and found a consistency relation between the coefficients of the bispectrum and trispectrum : tau_{NL}^(iso)~10^3 [f_{NL}^(iso)]^{4/3}, if the axion is dominantly produced by quantum fluctuation. Thus future observations of the trispectrum, as well as the bispectrum, will be important for understanding the origin of the CDM and baryon asymmetry.
We study inflationary models that produce a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum while breaking scale invariance significantly in the bispectrum. Under most circumstances, such models are finely-tuned, as radiative corrections generically induce a larger signal in the power spectrum. However, when scale invariance is broken collectively (i.e., it requires more than one coupling to break the symmetry), these radiative corrections may be suppressed. We illustrate the features and limitations of collective symmetry breaking in the context of resonant non-gaussianity. We discuss two examples wher…
We study the spherical Mexican hat wavelet (SMHW) as a detector of primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. For this purpose we define third order statistics based on the wavelet coefficient maps and the original map. We find the dependence of these statistics in terms of the non-linear coupling parameter fnl and the bispectrum of this type of non-Gaussianity. We compare the analytical values for these statistics with the results obtained with non-Gaussian simulations for an ideal full-sky CMB experiment without noise. We study the pow…
In this short note we clarify the role of the boundary terms in the calculation of the leading order tree-level bispectrum in a fairly general minimally coupled single field inflationary model, where the inflaton's Lagrangian is a general function of the scalar field and its first derivatives. This includes k-inflation, DBI-inflation and standard kinetic term inflation as particular cases. These boundary terms appear when simplifying the third order action by using integrations by parts. We perform the calculation in the comoving gauge obtaining explicitly all total time derivative interaction…
We calculate the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum due to inhomogeneous reionization. We calculate all the terms that can contribute to the bispectrum that are products of first order terms on all scales in conformal Newtonian gauge. We also correctly account for the de-correlation between the matter density and initial conditions using perturbation theory up to third order. We find that the bispectrum is of local type as expected. For a reasonable model of reionization, in which the Universe is completely ionized by redshift z_{ri} ~ 8 with optical depth to the last scattering surf…
We explore possibility of using the three dimensional bispectra of the Ly-alpha forest and the redshifted 21-cm signal from the post-reionization epoch to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity. Both these fields map out the large scale distribution of neutral hydrogen and maybe treated as tracers of the underlying dark matter field. We first present the general formalism for the auto and cross bispectrum of two arbitrary three dimensional biased tracers and then apply it to the specific case. We have modeled the 3D Ly-alpha transmitted flux field as a continuous tracer sampled along 1D skewers …
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 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…
