No Arabic abstract
We report a search for signatures of cosmic strings in the the Cosmic Microwave Background data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. We used a digital filter designed to search for individual cosmic strings and found no evidence for them in the WMAP CMB anisotropies to a level of $Delta T/T sim 0.29$ mK. This corresponds to an absence of cosmic strings with $ Gmu ga 1.07 times 10^{-5}$ for strings moving with velocity $v = c/sqrt{2}$. Unlike previous work, this limit does not depend on an assumed string abundance. We have searched the WMAP data for evidence of a cosmic string recently reported as the CSL-1 object, and found an ``edge with 2$sigma$ significance. However, if this edge is real and produced by a cosmic string, it would have to move at velocity $ga$ 0.94c. We also present preliminary limits on the CMB data that will be returned by the PLANCK satellite for comparison. With the available information on the PLANCK satellite, we calculated that it would be twice as sensitive to cosmic strings as WMAP.
Cosmic strings are a well-motivated extension to the standard cosmological model and could induce a subdominant component in the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), in addition to the standard inflationary component. The detection of strings, while observationally challenging, would provide a direct probe of physics at very high energy scales. We develop a new framework for cosmic string inference, constructing a Bayesian analysis in wavelet space where the string-induced CMB component has distinct statistical properties to the standard inflationary component. Our wavelet-Bayesian framework provides a principled approach to compute the posterior distribution of the string tension $Gmu$ and the Bayesian evidence ratio comparing the string model to the standard inflationary model. Furthermore, we present a technique to recover an estimate of any string-induced CMB map embedded in observational data. Using Planck-like simulations we demonstrate the application of our framework and evaluate its performance. The method is sensitive to $Gmu sim 5 times 10^{-7}$ for Nambu-Goto string simulations that include an integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) contribution only and do not include any recombination effects, before any parameters of the analysis are optimised. The sensitivity of the method compares favourably with other techniques applied to the same simulations.
We compute analytically the small-scale temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background from cosmic (super-)strings and study the dependence on the string intercommuting probability $P$. We develop an analytical model which describes the evolution of a string network and calculate the numbers of string segments and kinks in a horizon volume. Then we derive the probability distribution function (pdf) which takes account of finite angular resolution of observation. The resultant pdf consists of a Gaussian part due to frequent scatterings by long string segments and a non-Gaussian tail due to close encounters with kinks. The dispersion of the Gaussian part is reasonably consistent with that obtained by numerical simulations by Fraisse et al.. On the other hand, the non-Gaussian tail contains two phenomenological parameters which are determined by comparison with the numerical results for P=1. Extrapolating the pdf to the cases with $P<1$, we predict that the non-Gaussian feature is suppressed for small $P$.
We study how the presence of world-sheet currents affects the evolution of cosmic string networks, and their impact on predictions for the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies generated by these networks. We provide a general description of string networks with currents and explicitly investigate in detail two physically motivated examples: wiggly and superconducting cosmic string networks. By using a modified version of the CMBact code, we show quantitatively how the relevant network parameters in both of these cases influence the predicted CMB signal. Our analysis suggests that previous studies have overestimated the amplitude of the anisotropies for wiggly strings. For superconducting strings the amplitude of the anisotropies depends on parameters which presently are not well known - but which can be measured in future high-resolution numerical simulations.
Cosmic string networks generate cosmological perturbations actively throughout the history of the universe. Thus, the string sourced anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background is not affected by Silk damping as much as the anisotropy seeded by inflation. The spectrum of perturbations generated by strings does not match the observed CMB spectrum on large angular scales (l<1000) and is bounded to contribute no more than 10% of the total power on those scales. However, when this bound is marginally saturated, the anisotropy created by cosmic strings on small angular scales l>2000 will dominate over that created by the primary inflationary perturbations. This range of angular scales in the CMB is presently being measured by a number of experiments; their results will test this prediction of cosmic string networks soon.
Delensing is an increasingly important technique to reverse the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and thus reveal primordial signals the lensing may obscure. We present a first demonstration of delensing on Planck temperature maps using the cosmic infrared background (CIB). Reversing the lensing deflections in Planck CMB temperature maps using a linear combination of the 545 and 857GHz maps as a lensing tracer, we find that the lensing effects in the temperature power spectrum are reduced in a manner consistent with theoretical expectations. In particular, the characteristic sharpening of the acoustic peaks of the temperature power spectrum resulting from successful delensing is detected at a significance of 16$rm{sigma}$, with an amplitude of $A_{rm{delens}} = 1.12 pm 0.07$ relative to the expected value of unity. This first demonstration on data of CIB delensing, and of delensing techniques in general, is significant because lensing removal will soon be essential for achieving high-precision constraints on inflationary B-mode polarization.