The origin of power asymmetry and other measures of statistical anisotropy on the largest scales of the universe, as manifested in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and large-scale structure data, is a long-standing open question in cosmology. In this paper we analyze the Planck Legacy temperature anisotropy data and find strong evidence for a violation of the Cosmological principle of isotropy, with a probability of being a statistical fluctuation of order ~ 10^-9. The detected anisotropy is related to large-scale directional LCDM cosmological parameter variations across the CMB sky, that are sourced by three distinct patches in the maps with circularly-averaged sizes between 40 to 70 degrees in radius. We discuss the robustness of our findings to different foreground separation methods and analysis choices, and find consistent results from WMAP data when limiting the analysis to the same scales. We argue that these well-defined regions within the cosmological parameter maps may reflect finite and casually disjoint horizons across the observable universe. In particular we show that the observed relation between horizon size and mean dark energy density within a given horizon is in good agreement with expectations from a recently proposed model of the universe that explains cosmic acceleration and cosmological parameter tensions between the high and low redshift universe from the existence of casual horizons within our universe.
We investigate weak lensing effect on cosmic microwave background (CMB) in the presence of dipole anisotropy. The approach of flat-sky approximation is considered. We determine the functions $σ_0^2$ and $σ_2^2$ that appear in expressions of the lensed CMB power spectrum in the presence of a dipole anisotropy. We determine the correction to B-mode power spectrum which is found to be appreciable at low multipoles ($l$). However, the temperature and E-mode power spectrum are not altered significantly.
The local void model has recently attracted considerable attention because it can explain the apparent accelerated expansion of the present universe without introducing dark energy. However, in order to justify this model as an alternative to the standard $Λ$CDM cosmology, the model should be tested by various observations, such as the CMB temperature anisotropy, besides the distance-redshift relation of SNIa. For this purpose, we derive analytic formulae for the dipole and quadrupole moments of the CMB temperature anisotropy that hold for any spherically symmetric universe model and can be us…
To reliably detect the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy is of great importance in understanding the birth and evolution of the Universe. One of the difficulties in CMB experiments is the domination of measured CMB anisotropy maps by the Doppler dipole moment from the motion of the antenna relative to the CMB. For each measured temperature the expected dipole component has to be calculated separately and then subtracted from the data. A small error in dipole direction, antenna pointing direction, sidelobe pickup contamination, and/or timing synchronism, can raise significant deviati…
We use quadratic maximum-likelihood (QML) estimators to constrain models with Gaussian but statistically anisotropic Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuations, using CMB maps with realistic sky-coverage and instrumental noise. This approach is optimal when the anisotropy is small, or when checking for consistency with isotropy. We demonstrate the power of the QML approach by applying it to the WMAP data to constrain several models which modulate the observed CMB fluctuations to produce a statistically anisotropic sky. We first constrain an empirically motivated spatial modulation of the o…
The local void model has lately attracted considerable attention since it can explain the present apparent accelerated expansion of the universe without introducing dark energy. However, in order to justify this model as an alternative cosmological model to the standard $Λ$CDM model (FLRW universe plus dark energy), one has to test the model by various observations, such as CMB temperature anisotropy, other than the distance-redshift relation of SNIa. For this purpose, we derive some analytic formulae that can be used to rigorously compare consequences of this model with observations of CMB an…
Beam asymmetries result in statistically-anisotropic cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. Typically, they are studied for their effects on the CMB power spectrum, however they more closely mimic anisotropic effects such as gravitational lensing and primordial power asymmetry. We discuss tools for studying the effects of beam asymmetry on general quadratic estimators of anisotropy, analytically for full-sky observations as well as in the analysis of realistic data. We demonstrate this methodology in application to a recently-detected 9 sigma quadrupolar modulation effect in the WMAP data, sh…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides us with our most direct observational window to the early universe. Observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB have played a critical role in defining the now-standard cosmological model. In this contribution we review some of the basics of CMB science, highlighting the role of observations made with ground-based and balloon-borne Antarctic telescopes. Most of the ingredients of the standard cosmological model are poorly understood in terms of fundamental physics. We discuss how current and future CMB observations can…
We explore the possibility that both the suppression of the $\ell = 2$ multipole moment of the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background temperature fluctuations and the possible dip for $\ell = 10-30$ can be explained as well as a possible new dip for $\ell \approx 60$ as the result of the resonant creation of sequential excitations of a fermionic (or bosonic) closed superstring that couples to the inflaton field. We consider a D=26 closed bosonic string with one toroidal compact dimension as an illustration of how string excitations might imprint themselves on the CMB. We analyze the exi…
We relate the observed hemispherical anisotropy in the cosmic microwave radiation data to an inhomogeneous power spectrum model. The hemispherical anisotropy can be parameterized in terms of the dipole modulation model. This model leads to correlations between spherical harmonic coefficients corresponding to multipoles, l and l+1. We extract the $l$ dependence of the dipole modulation amplitude, A, by making a fit to the WMAP and PLANCK CMBR data. We propose an inhomogeneous power spectrum model and show that it also leads to correlations between multipoles, l and l+1. The model parameters are…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy possesses the remarkable property that its power is strongly suppressed on large angular scales. This observational fact can naturally be explained by cosmological models with a non-trivial topology. The paper focuses on lens spaces L(p,q) which are realised by a tessellation of the spherical 3-space S^3 by cyclic deck groups of order p<=72. The investigated cosmological parameter space covers the interval Omega_tot \in [1.001,1.05]. Several spaces are found which have CMB correlations on angular scales theta >= 60^\circ suppressed by a factor o…
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 …
Hot gas in filamentary structures induces CMB aniostropy through the SZ effect. Guided by results from N-body simulations, we model the morphology and gas properties of filamentary gas and determine the power spectrum of the anisotropy. Our treatment suggests that power levels can be an appreciable fraction of the cluster contribution at multipoles $\ell\lesssim 1500$. Its spatially irregular morphology and larger characteristic angular scales can help to distinguish this SZ signature from that of clusters. In addition to intrinsic interest in this most extended SZ signal as a probe of filamen…
The quantity $T_0$, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) monopole, is an often neglected seventh parameter of the standard cosmological model. As well as its variation affecting the physics of the CMB, the measurement of $T_0$ is also used to calibrate the anisotropies, via the orbital dipole. We point out that it is easy to misestimate the effect of $T_0$ because the CMB anisotropies are conventionally provided in temperature units. In fact the anisotropies are most naturally described as dimensionless and we argue for restoring the convention of working with $ΔT/T$ rather than $ΔT$. As a fr…
The Cosmic Microwave Background CMB originates from an early stage in the history of the universe. Observed low multipole contributions of CMB fluctuations have motivated the search for selection rules from the underlying topology of 3-space. Everitt (2004) has generated all homotopies for Platonic spherical 3-manifolds by face gluings. We transform the glue generators into isomorphic deck transformations. The deck transformations act on a spherical Platonic 3-manifold as prototile and tile the 3-sphere by its images. A complete set of orthonormal functions on the 3-sphere is spanned by the Wi…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), especially of its frequency spectrum and its anisotropies, both in temperature and in polarization, have played a key role in the development of modern cosmology and our understanding of the very early universe. We review the underlying physics of the CMB and how the primordial temperature and polarization anisotropies were imprinted. Possibilities for distinguishing competing cosmological models are emphasized. The current status of CMB experiments and experimental techniques with an emphasis toward future observations, particularly in po…
We consider the distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole anisotropy related to the primordial recombination radiation (PRR) and primordial $y$- and $μ$-distortions. The signals arise due to our motion relative to the CMB restframe and appear as a frequency-dependent distortion of the CMB temperature dipole. To leading order, the expected relative distortion of the CMB dipole does not depend on the particular observation directions and reaches the level of $10^{-6}$ for the PRR- and $μ$-distortions and $10^{-5}$ for the $y$-distortion in the frequency range 1 -- 700 GHz. The …
Both the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck observations reported the hemispherical asymmetry of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuation. The hemispherical asymmetry might be stemmed from the primordial statistical anisotropy during the inflationary era of the universe. In this paper, we study possible implications of the primordial power spectra with dipolar anisotropy on the CMB temperature fluctuation and polarizations. We explicitly show that the statistical dipolar anisotropy may induce the off-diagonal (\(\ell'\neq\ell\)) $TT$, $EE$, $BB$, and $T…
We study the dipole anisotropy in number counts and flux density weighted number counts {or sky brightness} in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) data. The dipole anisotropy is expected due to our local motion with respect to the CMBR rest frame. We analyse data with an improved fit to the number density, n(S), as a function of the flux density S, which allows deviation from a pure power law behaviour. We also impose more stringent cuts to remove the contribution due to clustering dipole. In agreement with earlier results, we find that the amplitude of anisotropy is significantly larger in compari…
While the arcminute-scale Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies are due to secondary effects, point sources dominate the total anisotropy power spectrum. At high frequencies the point sources are primarily in the form of dusty, star-forming galaxies. Both Herschel and Planck have recently measured the anisotropy power spectrum of cosmic infrared background (CIB) generated by dusty, star-forming galaxies from degree to sub-arcminute angular scales, including the non-linear clustering of these galaxies at multipoles of 3000 to 6000 relevant to CMB secondary anisotropy studies. We scale …
Given an arbitrary function, we may construct symmetric and antisymmetric functions under a certain operation. Since statistical isotropy and homogeneity of our Universe has been a fundamental assumption of modern cosmology, we do not expect any particular symmetry or antisymmetry in our Universe. Besides fundamental properties of our Universe, we may also figure our contamination and improve the quality of the CMB data products, by matching the unusual symmetries and antisymmetries of the CMB data with known contaminantions. Noting this, we have investigated the symmetry and antisymmetry of C…
The presence of a dipolar statistical anisotropy in the spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations was reported by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and has recently been confirmed in the Planck 2013 analysis of the temperature anisotropies. At the same time, the Planck 2013 results report a stringent bound on the amplitude of the local-type non-Gaussianity. We show that the non-linear effect of the dipolar anisotropy generates not only a quadrupole moment in the CMB but also a local-type non-Gaussianity. Consequently, it is not easy to build models having a larg…
Planck-2015 data seem to favour a large value of the lensing amplitude parameter, $A_{\rm L}=1.22\pm0.10$, in CMB spectra. This result is in $2σ$ tension with the lensing reconstruction result, $A_{\rm L}^{ϕϕ}=0.95\pm0.04$. In this paper, we simulate several CMB anisotropy and CMB lensing spectra based on Planck-2015 best-fit cosmological parameter values and Planck blue book beam and noise specifications. We analyse several modified gravity models within the effective field theory framework against these simulations and find that models whose effective Newton constant is enhanced can modulate…
Single field inflationary models that seek to greatly enhance small scale power in order to form primordial black holes predict both a squeezed bispectrum that is enhanced by this small scale power and a potentially detectable enhancement of CMB spectral distortions. Despite this combination, spectral distortion anisotropy on CMB scales remains small since the squeezed bispectrum represents an unobservable modulation of the scale rather than local amplitude for the short wavelength acoustic power that dissipates and forms the $μ$ spectral distortion. The leading order amplitude effect comes fr…
A local void modifies the sky distribution pattern of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation by gravitational lensing and produces B-modes from E-modes for an off-center observer. In order to see whether this effect can be used to observationally test the validity of the local void model, we calculate this lensing effect by solving the propagation of CMB polarisation along null geodesics close to the central light cone in the general Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) model perturbatively. In particular, we give general formulas for the correlations of E and B observed by an off-center ob…
Cascade of particles injected as Hawking Radiation from Primordial Black Holes (PBH) can potentially change the cosmic recombination history by ionizing and heating the intergalactic medium, which results in altering the anisotropy spectra of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). In this paper, we study the expected sensitivity of several future CMB experiments in constraining the abundance of PBHs distributed in $10^{15}\sim10^{17}$ g mass window according to four mass functions: the monochromatic, log-normal, power-law and critical collapse models. Our result shows that future experiments, …
Non-linear CMB temperature anisotropies up to the third-order on large scales are calculated. On large scales and in the Sachs-Wolfe limit, we give the explicit expression for the observed temperature anisotropy in terms of the primordial curvature perturbation up to the third-order. We derived the final bispectrum and trispectrum of anisotropies and the corresponding non-linear parameters, in which the contributions to the observed non-Gaussianity from primordial perturbations and from the non-linear mapping from primordial curvature perturbation to the temperature anisotropy are transparentl…
Any isotropy violating phenomena on cosmic microwave background (CMB) induces off-diagonal correlations in the two-point function. These correlations themselves can be used to estimate the underlying anisotropic signals. Masking due to residual foregrounds, or availability of partial sky due to survey limitation, are unavoidable circumstances in CMB studies. But, masking induces additional correlations, and thus complicates the recovery of such signals. In this work, we discuss a procedure based on bipolar spherical harmonic (BipoSH) formalism to comprehensively addresses any spurious correlat…
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectral $y$-distortion anisotropy offer a test for the statistical isotropy of the primordial density perturbations on $0.01\lesssim k{\rm Mpc}\lesssim 1$. We compute the 1-point ensemble averages of the $y$-distortion anisotropies which vanish for the statistically isotropic perturbations. For the quadrupole statistical anisotropy, we find $4π\langle y_{2m}\rangle=-6.8A_2\times 10^{-9}Y_{2m}(\mathbf d )$ with the quadruple Legendre coefficient of the anisotropic powerspectrum $A_2$ and the $\ell=2$ spherical harmonics $Y_{2m}(\mathbf d )$…
We evaluate the degradation of the accuracy of the component separation between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and foreground components caused by neglect of absorption of the monopole component of the CMB by the galactic interstellar matter. The amplitude of the temperature anisotropy caused by the CMB shadow, due to dust components, is about 1 uK. This value is comparable to the required noise level necessary to probe non-Gaussianity studies with upcoming CMB experiments. In addition, the amplitude of the polarization caused by the CMB shadow due to dust is comparable to or larger tha…
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.
In this paper, we consider a possibility that the temperature anisotropy of cosmic microwave background (CMB) is dominantly generated by the primordial fluctuations of QCD-axion like particles under a circumstance that inflaton's perturbation is too small to explain the CMB anisotropy. Since the axion potential is generated by acquiring its energy from radiation, the primordial fluctuations of the axion field generated in the inflation era are correlated with the CMB anisotropies. Consequently, the observations stringently constrain a model of the axion and the early universe scenario. The fol…
We present new constraints on cosmic variations of Newton's gravitational constant by making use of the latest CMB data from WMAP, BOOMERANG, CBI and ACBAR experiments and independent constraints coming from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We found that current CMB data provide constraints at the 10% level, that can be improved to 3% by including BBN data. We show that future data expected from the Planck satellite could constrain G at the 1.5% level while an ultimate, cosmic variance limited, CMB experiment could reach a precision of about 0.4%, competitive with current laboratory measurements.
A modified gravity involving a critical acceleration, as empirically established at galactic scales and successfully tested by data on supernovae of type Ia, can fit the measured multipole spectrum of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation, so that a dark sector of Universe is constructively mimicked as caused by the dynamics beyond the general relativity. Physical consequences, verifiable predictions and falsifiable issues are listed and discussed.
We derive the primordial power spectrum of density fluctuations in the framework of quantum cosmology. For this purpose we perform a Born-Oppenheimer approximation to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for an inflationary universe with a scalar field. In this way we first recover the scale-invariant power spectrum that is found as an approximation in the simplest inflationary models. We then obtain quantum gravitational corrections to this spectrum and discuss whether they lead to measurable signatures in the CMB anisotropy spectrum. The non-observation so far of such corrections translates into an u…
Injection of high energy electromagnetic particles around the recombination epoch can modify the standard recombination history and therefore the CMB anisotropy power spectrum. Previous studies have put strong constraints on the amount of electromagnetic energy injection around the recombination era (redshifts $z\lesssim 4500$). However, energy injected in the form of energetic ($>$ keV) visible standard model particles is not deposited instantaneously. The considerable delay between the time of energy injection and the time when all energy is deposited to background baryonic gas and CMB photo…
Search for the statistical anisotropy in the CMB data is a powerful tool for constraining models of the early Universe. In this paper we focus on the recently proposed cosmological scenario with conformal rolling. We consider two sub-scenarios, one of which involves a long intermediate stage between conformal rolling and conventional hot epoch. Primordial scalar perturbations generated within these sub-scenarios have different direction-dependent power spectra, both characterized by a single parameter h^2. We search for the signatures of this anisotropy in the seven-year WMAP data using quadra…
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani（比尔拉科学技术学院皮拉尼分校）
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has been a cornerstone in many cosmology experiments and studies since it was discovered back in 1964. Traditional computational models like CAMB that are used for generating CMB temperature anisotropy maps are extremely resource intensive and act as a bottleneck in cosmology experiments that require a large amount of CMB data for analysis. In this paper, we present a new approach to the generation of CMB temperature maps using a specific class of neural networks called Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). We train our deep generative model to learn the compl…
The network of cosmic strings generated in a phase transition during inflation enters the scaling regime later than that of usual strings. If it occurs after the recombination, temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at high multipole moments are significantly reduced. In this paper, we study such effects qualitatively and show that the constraint on the cosmic string tension from the CMB temperature anisotropies and B-mode polarizations can be relaxed. It is shown to be difficult to explain the recent BICEP2 and POLARBEAR results in terms of signals induced by cosmic…
Cosmic microwave background radiation can supply us some most significant parts of the information on the universe. Some researchers believe that The gravitational system cannot be decribed by the standard statistical mechanics. In this article we apply Tsallis nonextensive statistical mechanics to investigate CMB spectrum and related cosmological processes. Based on recent observational data we find that the nonextensive statistical mechanics can modify the values of related physical quantites. Since the value of physical quantites have changed, some processes, such as recombination, can be a…
The exquisitely measured maps of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) present the possibility to test the principle of Statistical Isotropy (SI) of the Universe through systematic observable measures for non-Statistical Isotropy (nSI) features in the data. Recent measurements of the CMB temperature field provide tantalizing evidence of the deviation from SI. A systematic approach based on strong mathematical formulation allows any nSI feature to be traced to known physical effects or observational artefacts. Unexplained nSI features could have immense cosmological ramification…
We use wavelet and curvelet transforms to extract signals of cosmic strings from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy maps, and to study the limits on the cosmic string tension which various ongoing CMB temperature anisotropy experiments will be able to achieve. We construct sky maps with size and angular resolution corresponding to various experiments. These maps contain the signals of a scaling solution of long string segments with a given string tension $G μ$, the contribution of the dominant Gaussian primordial cosmological fluctuations, and pixel by pixel white noise w…
Primordial statistical anisotropy is a key indicator to investigate early Universe models and has been probed by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. In this paper, we examine tensor-mode CMB fluctuations generated from anisotropic gravitational waves, parametrised by $P_h({\bf k}) = P_h^{(0)}(k) [ 1 + \sum_{LM} f_L(k) g_{LM} Y_{LM} (\hat{\bf k}) ]$, where $P_h^{(0)}(k)$ is the usual scale-invariant power spectrum. Such anisotropic tensor fluctuations may arise from an inflationary model with noncommutativity of fields. It is verified that in this model, an isotropic component a…
We propose a model of cosmological evolution of the early and late Universe which is consistent with observational data and naturally explains the origin of inflation and dark energy. We show that the de Sitter accelerated expansion of the FLRW space with no matter fields (hereinafter, empty space) is its natural state, and the model does not require either a scalar field or cosmological constant or any other hypotheses. This is due to the fact that the de Sitter state is an exact solution of the rigorous mathematically consistent equations of one-loop quantum gravity for the empty FLRW space …
We have succeeded in establishing a cosmological model with a non-minimally coupled scalar field $ϕ$ that can account not only for the spatial periodicity or the {\it picket-fence structure} exhibited by the galaxy $N$-$z$ relation of the 2dF survey but also for the spatial power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) temperature anisotropy observed by the WMAP satellite. The Hubble diagram of our model also compares well with the observation of Type Ia supernovae. The scalar field of our model universe starts from an extremely small value at around the nucleosynthesis epo…
