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 for all the non-zero multipoles {\it i.e.} upto $\ell=6,m=4$. The ratio of the different multipole moments to the real space bispectrum depends only on $β_1$ the linear redshift distortion parameter and the shape of the triangle. Considering triangles of all possible shapes, we have studied how this ratio depends on the shape of the triangle for $β_1=1$. We have also studied the $β_1$ dependence for some of the extreme triangle shapes. If measured in future, these multipole moments hold the potential of constraining $β_1$. The results presented here are also important if one wishes to constrain $f_{\text{NL}}$ using redshift surveys.
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Analytic expressions for the statistics of peaks of random fields with weak non-Gaussianity are provided. Specifically, the abundance and spatial correlation of peaks are represented by formulas which can be evaluated only by virtually one-dimensional integrals. We assume the non-Gaussianity is weak enough such that it is represented by linear terms of the bispectrum. The formulas are formally given in $N$-dimensional space, and explicitly given in the case of $N=1,2,3$. Some examples of peak statistics in cosmological fields are calculated for the cosmic density field and weak lensing field, …
We study the effects of gravitational lensing on the estimation of non-Gaussianity from the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. We find that the effect of lensing on the bispectrum may qualitatively be described as a smoothing of the acoustic features analogous to the temperature power spectrum. In contrast to previous results, for a Planck-like experiment which is cosmic-variance limited to L=2000, we find that lensing causes no significant degradation of our ability to constrain the non-Gaussianity amplitude fNL for both local and equilateral configu…
In this paper we establish the accuracy and robustness of a fast estimator for the bispectrum - the "FFT bispectrum estimator". The implementation of the estimator presented here offers speed and simplicity benefits over a direct sampling approach. We also generalise the derivation so it may be easily be applied to any order polyspectra, such as the trispectrum, with the cost of only a handful of FFTs. All lower order statistics can also be calculated simultaneously for little extra cost. To test the estimator we make use of a non-linear density field, and for a more strongly non-Gaussian test…
We devise a fast and optimal estimator for the amplitude of the bispectrum of clustered Infrared (IR) point-sources. We show how this estimator can account for the cases of partial sky coverage and inhomogeneous noise. Expected detection significance are presented in terms of signal-to-noise, finding that the IR bispectrum will realistically be undetectable below 220 GHz with a Planck-like experiment; on the contrary detection may be achieved at, or above, 220 GHz especially if the CMB is removed. We also show how this estimator can be combined with estimators of radio and CMB non-Gaussianity …
We characterize the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB)-lensing bispectrum which is one of the contributions to the three-point functions of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) maps in harmonic space. We show that the CIB-lensing bispectrum has a considerable strength and that it can be detected with high significance in the Planck high-frequency maps. We also present forecasts of the contamination on different shapes of the primordial non-Gaussianity $f_{nl}$ parameter produced by the CIB-lensing bispectrum and by the extragalactic point sources bispectrum in the Planck high-resolution CMB anisotr…
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…
Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) data can be used to explore harmonic 3-point functions that involve the B-mode component of the CMB polarization signal. We focus on bispectra describing the non-Gaussian correlation of the B-mode field and the CMB temperature anisotropies (T) and/or E-mode polarization, i.e. <TTB>, <EEB>, and <TEB>. Such bispectra probe violations of the tensor consistency relation: the model-independent behavior of cosmological correlation functions that involve a large-wavelength tensor mode (gravitational wave). An observed violation of the tensor consistency rela…
We evaluate the angular bispectrum of the CMB temperature anisotropy at large angular scale due to a stochastic background of primordial magnetic fields. The shape of non-Gaussianity depends on the spectral index of the magnetic field power spectrum and is peaked in the squeezed configuration for a scale-invariant magnetic spectrum. By using the large angular part of the bispectrum generated by magnetic fields, the present bounds on non-Gaussianity set a limit on the amplitude of the primordial magnetic field of the order of 10 nGauss for the scale-invariant case and 20 nGauss for the other sp…
We apply the needlet formalism to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 5-year data, looking for evidence of non-Gaussianity in the bispectrum of the needlet amplitudes. We confirm earlier findings of an asymmetry in the non-Gaussianity between the northern and southern galactic hemispheres. We attempt to isolate which scales and geometrical configurations are most anomalous, and find the bispectrum is most significant on large scales and in the more co-linear configurations, and also in the `squeezed' configurations. However, these anomalies do not appear to affect the estimate of the non-…
A measurement of primordial non-gaussianity will be of paramount importance to distinguish between different models of inflation. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy observations have set unprecedented bounds on the non-gaussianity parameter f_NL but the interesting regime f_NL <~ 1 is beyond their reach. Brightness-temperature fluctuations in the 21-cm line during the dark ages (z ~ 30-100) are a promising successor to CMB studies, giving access to a much larger number of modes. They are, however, intrinsically non-linear, which results in secondary non-gaussianities orders of magnit…
We investigate the possibility of constraining primordial non-Gaussianity using the 3D bispectrum of Ly-alpha forest. The strength of the quadratic non-Gaussian correction to an otherwise Gaussian primordial gravitational field is assumed to be dictated by a single parameter fnl. We present the first prediction for bounds on fnl using Ly-alpha flux spectra along multiple lines of sight. The 3D Ly-$α$ transmitted flux field is modeled as a biased tracer of the underlying matter distribution sampled along 1D skewers corresponding to quasars sight lines. The precision to which fnl can be constrai…
Upcoming galaxy redshift surveys promise to significantly improve current limits on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) through measurements of 2- and 3-point correlation functions in Fourier space. However, realizing the full potential of this dataset is contingent upon having both accurate theoretical models and optimized analysis methods. Focusing on the local model of PNG, parameterized by $f_{\rm NL}$, we perform a Monte-Carlo Markov Chain analysis to confront perturbation theory predictions of the halo power spectrum and bispectrum in real space against a suite of N-body simulations. We mod…
We calculate the bispectrum of scale-invariant tensor modes sourced by spectator SU(2) gauge fields during inflation in a model containing a scalar inflaton, a pseudoscalar axion and SU(2) gauge fields. A large bispectrum is generated in this model at tree-level as the gauge fields contain a tensor degree of freedom, and its production is dominated by self-coupling of the gauge fields. This is a unique feature of non-Abelian gauge theory. The shape of the tensor bispectrum is approximately an equilateral shape for $3\lesssim m_Q\lesssim 4$, where $m_Q$ is an effective dimensionless mass of the…
We studied the effect of primordial non-Gaussianity with varied bispectrum shapes on the number counts of signal-to-noise peaks in wide field cosmic shear maps. The two cosmological contributions to this particular weak lensing statistic, namely the chance projection of Large Scale Structure and the occurrence of real, cluster-sized dark matter halos, have been modeled semi-analytically, thus allowing to easily introduce the effect of non-Gaussian initial conditions. We performed a Fisher matrix analysis by taking into account the full covariance of the peak counts in order to forecast the joi…
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…
[Abridged] This PhD thesis was defended in September 2013 at Université Paris-Sud, France. It studies the non-Gaussianity (NG) of extragalactic foregrounds to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This is particularly important for the analysis of CMB data from the Planck satellite, in which I was involved. I studied in particular the extragalactic foregrounds tracing the Large Scale Structure (LSS) of the universe : radio and infrared point-sources and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (tSZ). The motivations and summary of this thesis cannot be shortened into the length constraints of th…
We compare the efficiency of weak lensing-selected galaxy clusters counts and of the weak lensing bispectrum at capturing non-Gaussian features in the dark matter distribution. We use the halo model to compute the weak lensing power spectrum, the bispectrum and the expected number of detected clusters, and derive constraints on cosmological parameters for a large, low systematic weak lensing survey, by focusing on the $Ω_m$-$σ_8$ plane and on the dark energy equation of state. We separate the power spectrum into the resolved and the unresolved parts of the data, the resolved part being defined…
We study the degree to which the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be used to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity involving one tensor and two scalar fluctuations, focusing on the correlation of one polarization $B$ mode with two temperature modes. In the simplest models of inflation, the tensor-scalar-scalar primordial bispectrum is non-vanishing and is of the same order in slow-roll parameters as the scalar-scalar-scalar bispectrum. We calculate the $\langle BTT\rangle$ correlation arising from a primordial tensor-scalar-scalar bispectrum, and show that constraints from an experiment li…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) is a sensitive probe of the local primordial bispectrum. CIB measurements are integrated over a large volume so that the scale dependent bias from the primordial non-Gaussianity leaves a strong signal in the CIB power spectrum. Although galactic dust dominates over the non-Gaussian CIB signal, it is possible to mitigate the dust contamination with enough frequency channels, especially if high frequencies such as the Planck 857 GHz channel are available. We show that, in this case, measurements of the cosmic microwave background…
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…
We show that an inflation model in which a spectator axion field is coupled to an SU(2) gauge field produces a large three-point function (bispectrum) of primordial gravitational waves, $B_{h}$, on the scales relevant to the cosmic microwave background experiments. The amplitude of the bispectrum at the equilateral configuration is characterized by $B_{h}/P_h^2=\mathcal{O}(10)\times Ω_A^{-1}$, where $Ω_A$ is a fraction of the energy density in the gauge field and $P_h$ is the power spectrum of gravitational waves produced by the gauge field.
We measure the skewness power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies optimized for a detection of the secondary bispectrum generated by the correlation of the CMB lensing potential with integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. The covariance of our measurements is generated by Monte-Carlo simulations of Gaussian CMB fields with noise properties consistent with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 5-year data. When interpreting multi-frequency measurements we also take into account the confusion resulting from unresolved radio point sources…
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 constrain the primordial non-Gaussianity parameter of the local model f_{NL} using the skewness power spectrum associated with the two-to-one cumulant correlator of cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. This bispectrum-related power spectrum was constructed after weighting the temperature map with the appropriate window functions to form an estimator that probes the multipolar dependence of the underlying bispectrum associated with the primordial non-Gaussianity. We also estimate a separate skewness power spectrum sensitive more strongly to unresolved point sources. When com…
We study the signature of primordial non-Gaussianity imprinted on the power spectrum of the 21-cm line differential brightness temperature during dark ages. Employing the perturbative treatment of gravitational clustering, we quantitatively estimate the effects of the non-Gaussian and one-loop corrections on the 21-cm power spectrum. The potential impact of the use of the 21-cm power spectrum for the constraint on local-type primordial non-Gaussianity is investigated based on the Fisher matrix analysis. Our results show that the 21-cm power spectrum for an array with a baseline of several tens…
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 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…
This study, using publicly available simulations, focuses on the characterisation of the non-Gaussianity produced by radio point sources and by infrared (IR) sources in the frequency range of the cosmic microwave background from 30 to 350 GHz. We propose a simple prescription to infer the angular bispectrum from the power spectrum of point sources considering independent populations of sources, with or without clustering. We test the accuracy of our prediction using publicly available all-sky simulations of radio and IR sources and find very good agreement. We further characterise the configur…
Squeezed primordial non-Gaussianity can strongly constrain early-universe physics, but it can only be observed on the CMB after it has been gravitationally lensed. We give a new simple non-perturbative prescription for accurately calculating the effect of lensing on any squeezed primordial bispectrum shape, and test it with simulations. We give the generalization to polarization bispectra, and discuss the effect of lensing on the trispectrum. We explain why neglecting the lensing smoothing effect does not significantly bias estimators of local primordial non-Gaussianity, even though the change…
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.
The cosmic microwave background radiation is supposed to be Gaussian and this hypothesis is in good agreement with the recent very accurate measurements. Nonetheless a tiny amount of non-Gaussianity is predicted by the standard inflation scenario, while more exotic models suggest a higher degree of non-Gaussianity. Tightly constraining the level of Gaussianity in the CMB data represents then a fundamental handle to understand the physics and the origin of our universe. By means of needlets, a novel rendition of wavelets, characterised by excellent properties of localisations both in harmonic a…
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…
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…
