No Arabic abstract
We present properties of the peaks (maxima) of the CMB anisotropies expected in flat and open CDM models. We obtain analytical expressions of several topological descriptors: mean number of maxima and the probability distribution of the gaussian curvature and the eccentricity of the peaks. These quantities are calculated as functions of the radiation power spectrum, assuming a gaussian distribution of temperature anisotropies. We present results for angular resolutions ranging from 5 to 20 (antenna FWHM), scales that are relevant for the MAP and COBRAS/SAMBA space missions and the ground-based interferometer experiments. Our analysis also includes the effects of noise. We find that the number of peaks can discriminate between standard CDM models, and that the gaussian curvature distribution provides a useful test for these various models, whereas the eccentricity distribution can not distinguish between them.
We present a method to delens the acoustic peaks of the CMB temperature and polarization power spectra internally, using lensing maps reconstructed from the CMB itself. We find that when delensing CMB acoustic peaks with a lensing potential map derived from the same CMB sky, a large bias arises in the delensed power spectrum. The cause of this bias is that the noise in the reconstructed potential map is derived from, and hence correlated with, the CMB map when delensing. This bias is more significant relative to the signal than an analogous bias found when delensing CMB B modes. We calculate the leading term of this bias, which is present even in the absence of lensing. We also demonstrate one method to remove this bias, using reconstructions from CMB angular scales within given ranges to delens CMB scales outside of those ranges. Some details relevant for a realistic analysis are also discussed, such as the importance of removing mask-induced effects for successful delensing, and a useful null test, obtained from randomizing the phases of the reconstructed potential. Our findings should help current and next-generation CMB experiments obtain tighter parameter constraints via the internal removal of lensing-induced smoothing from temperature and E-mode acoustic peaks.
The standard inflationary model presents a simple scenario within which the homogeneity, isotropy and flatness of the universe appear as natural outcomes and, in addition, fluctuations in the energy density are originated during the inflationary phase. These seminal density fluctuations give rise to fluctuations in the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at the decoupling surface. Afterward, the CMB photons propagate almost freely, with slight gravitational interactions with the evolving gravitational field present in the large scale structure (LSS) of the matter distribution and a low scattering rate with free electrons after the universe becomes reionized. These secondary effects slightly change the shape of the intensity and polarization angular power spectra (APS) of the radiation. The APS contain very valuable information on the parameters characterizing the background model of the universe and those parametrising the power spectra of both matter density perturbations and gravitational waves. In the last few years data from sensitive experiments have allowed a good determination of the shape of the APS, providing for the first time a model of the universe very close to spatially flat. In particular the WMAP first year data, together with other CMB data at higher resolution and other cosmological data sets, have made possible to determine the cosmological parameters with a precision of a few percent. The most striking aspect of the derived model of the universe is the unknown nature of most of its energy contents. This and other open problems in cosmology represent exciting challenges for the CMB community. The future ESA Planck mission will undoubtely shed some light on these remaining questions.
This paper reviews some of the results of the Planck collaboration and shows how to compute the distance from the surface of last scattering, the distance from the farthest object that will ever be observed, and the maximum radius of a density fluctuation in the plasma of the CMB. It then explains how these distances together with well-known astronomical facts imply that space is flat or nearly flat and that dark energy is 69% of the energy of the universe.
This paper presents a measurement of the angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background from l=75 to l=1025 (~10 to 5 degrees) from a combined analysis of four 150 GHz channels in the BOOMERANG experiment. The spectrum contains multiple peaks and minima, as predicted by standard adiabatic-inflationary models in which the primordial plasma undergoes acoustic oscillations. These results significantly constrain the values of Omega_tot, Omega_b h^2, Omega_c h^2 and n_s.
Three peaks and two dips have been detected in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background from the BOOMERANG experiment, at $ell sim 210, 540, 840$ and $ell sim 420, 750$, respectively. Using model-independent analyses, we find that all five features are statistically significant and we measure their location and amplitude. These are consistent with the adiabatic inflationary model. We also calculate the mean and variance of the peak and dip locations and amplitudes in a large 7-dimensional parameter space of such models, which gives good agreement with the model-independent estimates, and forecast where the next few peaks and dips should be found if the basic paradigm is correct. We test the robustness of our results by comparing Bayesian marginalization techniques on this space with likelihood maximization techniques applied to a second 7-dimensional cosmological parameter space, using an independent computational pipeline, and find excellent agreement: $Omega_{rm tot} = 1.02^{+0.06}_{-0.05}$ {it vs.} $1.04 pm 0.05$, $Omega_b h^2 = 0.022^{+0.004}_{-0.003}$ {it vs.} $0.019^{+0.005}_{-0.004}$, and $n_s = 0.96^{+0.10}_{-0.09}$ {it vs.} $0.90 pm 0.08$. The deviation in primordial spectral index $n_s$ is a consequence of the strong correlation with the optical depth.