No Arabic abstract
Cosmic magnetic fields are observed to be coherent on large scales and could have a primordial origin. Non-Gaussian signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are generated by primordial magnetic fields as the magnetic stresses and temperature anisotropy they induce depend quadratically on the magnetic field. We compute the CMB scalar trispectrum on large angular scales, for nearly scale-invariant magnetic fields, sourced via the Sachs-Wolfe effect. The trispectra induced by magnetic energy density and by magnetic scalar anisotropic stress are found to have typical magnitudes of approximately $10^{-29}$ and $10^{-19}$, respectively. The scalar anisotropic stress trispectrum is also calculated in the flat-sky approximation and yields a similar result. Observational limits on CMB non-Gaussianity from the Planck mission data allow us to set upper limits of $B_0 lesssim 0.6 $ nG on the present value of the primordial cosmic magnetic field. Considering the inflationary magnetic curvature mode in the trispectrum can further tighten the magnetic field upper limit to $B_0 lesssim 0.05 $ nG. These sub-nanoGauss constraints from the magnetic trispectrum are the most stringent limits so far on the strength of primordial magnetic fields, on megaparsec scales, significantly better than the limits obtained from the CMB bispectrum and the CMB power spectrum.
Primordial magnetic fields will generate non-Gaussian signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as magnetic stresses and the temperature anisotropy they induce depend quadratically on the magnetic field. We compute a new measure of magnetic non-Gaussianity, the CMB trispectrum, on large angular scales, sourced via the Sachs-Wolfe effect. The trispectra induced by magnetic energy density and by magnetic scalar anisotropic stress are found to have typical magnitudes of approximately a few times 10^{-29} and 10^{-19}, respectively. Observational limits on CMB non-Gaussianity from WMAP data allow us to conservatively set upper limits of a nG, and plausibly sub-nG, on the present value of the primordial cosmic magnetic field. This represents the tightest limit so far on the strength of primordial magnetic fields, on Mpc scales, and is better than limits from the CMB bispectrum and all modes in the CMB power spectrum. Thus, the CMB trispectrum is a new and more sensitive probe of primordial magnetic fields on large scales.
We present constraints on the patchy reionization by measuring the trispectrum of the Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. The patchy reionization leads to anisotropies in the CMB optical depth, and the statistics of the observed CMB anisotropies is altered. We estimate the trispectrum of the CMB temperature anisotropies to constrain spatial variation of the optical depth. We show that the measured trispectrum is consistent with that from the standard lensed CMB simulation at $2sigma$. While no evidence of the patchy reionization is found in the Planck 2015 temperature trispectrum, the CMB constraint on the patchy reionization is significantly improved from previous works. Assuming the analytic bubble-halo model of Wang and Hu (2006), the constraint obtained in this work rules out the typical bubble size at the ionization fraction of $sim0.5$ as $Rgtrsim 10$ Mpc. Further, our constraint implies that large-scale $B$-modes from the patchy reionization are not a significant contamination in detecting the primordial gravitational waves of $rgtrsim0.001$ if the $B$ mode induced by the patchy reionization is described by Dvorkin et al. (2009). The CMB trispectrum data starts to provide meaningful constraints on the patchy reionization.
We constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a (possibly correlated) cold dark matter (CDM) or baryon isocurvature component. We use both a phenomenological approach, where the primordial power spectra are parametrized with amplitudes and spectral indices, and a slow-roll two-field inflation approach where slow-roll parameters are used as primary parameters. In the phenomenological case, with CMB data, the upper limit to the CDM isocurvature fraction is alpha<6.4% at k=0.002Mpc^{-1} and 15.4% at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}. The median 95% range for the non-adiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature variance is -0.030<alpha_T<0.049. Including the supernova (or large-scale structure, LSS) data, these limits become: alpha<7.0%, 13.7%, and -0.048<alpha_T< 0.042 (or alpha<10.2%, 16.0%, and -0.071<alpha_T<0.024). The CMB constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r<0.26 at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}, is not affected by the nonadiabatic modes. In the slow-roll two-field inflation approach, the spectral indices are constrained close to 1. This leads to tighter limits on the isocurvature fraction, with the CMB data alpha<2.6% at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}, but the constraint on alpha_T is not much affected, -0.058<alpha_T<0.045. Including SN (or LSS) data, these limits become: alpha< 3.2% and -0.056<alpha_T<0.030 (or alpha<3.4% and -0.063<alpha_T<-0.008). When all spectral indices are close to each other the isocurvature fraction is somewhat degenerate with the tensor-to-scalar ratio. In addition to the generally correlated models, we study also special cases where the perturbation modes are uncorrelated or fully (anti)correlated. We calculate Bayesian evidences (model probabilities) in 21 different cases for our nonadiabatic models and for the corresponding adiabatic models, and find that in all cases the data support the pure adiabatic model.
Primordial magnetic fields lead to non-Gaussian signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) even at the lowest order, as magnetic stresses and the temperature anisotropy they induce depend quadratically on the magnetic field. In contrast, CMB non-Gaussianity due to inflationary scalar perturbations arises only as a higher order effect. Apart from a compensated scalar mode, stochastic primordial magnetic fields also produce scalar anisotropic stress that remains uncompensated till neutrino decoupling. This gives rise to an adiabatic-like scalar perturbation mode that evolves passively thereafter (called the passive mode). We compute the CMB reduced bispectrum ($b_{l_{_1}l_{_2}l_{_3}}$) induced by this passive mode, sourced via the Sachs-Wolfe effect, on large angular scales. For any configuration of bispectrum, taking a partial sum over mode-coupling terms, we find a typical value of $l_1(l_1+1)l_3(l_3+1) b_{l_{_1}l_{_2}l_{_3}} sim 6-9 times 10^{-16}$, for a magnetic field of $B_0 sim 3$ nG, assuming a nearly scale-invariant magnetic spectrum . We also evaluate, in full, the bispectrum for the squeezed collinear configuration over all angular mode-coupling terms and find $l_1(l_1+1)l_3(l_3+1) b_{l_{_1}l_{_2}l_{_3}} approx -1.4 times 10^{-16}$. These values are more than $sim 10^6$ times larger than the previously calculated magnetic compensated scalar mode CMB bispectrum. Observational limits on the bispectrum from WMAP7 data allow us to set upper limits of $B_0 sim 2$ nG on the present value of the cosmic magnetic field of primordial origin. This is over 10 times more stringent than earlier limits on $B_0$ based on the compensated mode bispectrum.
Magnetic fields are everywhere in nature and they play an important role in every astronomical environment which involves the formation of plasma and currents. It is natural therefore to suppose that magnetic fields could be present in the turbulent high temperature environment of the big bang. Such a primordial magnetic field (PMF) would be expected to manifest itself in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies, and also in the formation of large- scale structure. In this review we summarize the theoretical framework which we have developed to calculate the PMF power spectrum to high precision. Using this formulation, we summarize calculations of the effects of a PMF which take accurate quantitative account of the time evolution of the cut off scale. We review the constructed numerical program, which is without approximation, and an improvement over the approach used in a number of previous works for studying the effect of the PMF on the cosmological perturbations. We demonstrate how the PMF is an important cosmological physical process on small scales. We also summarize the current constraints on the PMF amplitude $B_lambda$ and the power spectral index $n_B$ which have been deduced from the available CMB observational data by using our computational framework.