Physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the Planck Mission

This lecture is a sketch of the physics of the cosmic microwave background. The observed anisotropy can be divided into four main contributions: variations in the temperature and gravitational potential of the primordial plasma, Doppler effect from its motion, and a net red/blueshift the photons accumulate from traveling through evolving gravitational potentials on their way from the primordial plasma to here. These variations are due to primordial perturbations, probably caused by quantum fluctuations in the very early universe. The ongoing Planck satellite mission to observe the cosmic microwave background is also described.Comment: Proceedings of the 2010 CERN Summer School, Raseborg (Finland), submitted for publication in a CERN Yellow Repor

Supersonic Deflagrations in Cosmological Phase Transitions

The classification of the hydrodynamical growth mechanisms for the spherical bubbles of the low-temperature phase in cosmological phase transitions is completed by showing that the bubbles can grow as supersonic deflagrations. Such deflagrations consist of a Jouguet deflagration, followed by a rarefaction wave. Depending on the amount of supercooling, the maximal velocity of supersonic deflagrations varies between the sound and the light velocities. The solutions faster than supersonic deflagrations are weak detonations.Comment: 8 pages, RevTeX, 6 figures. Complete paper appended as uuencoded postscript and at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/tft/tft_preprints.htm

Inhomogeneous Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis in Light of Recent Observations

We consider inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis in light of the present observational situation. Different observations of He-4 and D disagree with each other, and depending on which set of observations one uses, the estimated primordial He-4 corresponds to a lower baryon density in standard big bang nucleosynthesis than what one gets from deuterium. Recent Kamiokande results rule out a favorite particle physics solution to this tension between He-4 and D. Inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis can alleviate this tension, but the more likely solution is systematics in the observations. The upper limit to Omega_b from inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis is higher than in standard nucleosynthesis, given that the distance scale of the inhomogeneity is near the optimal value, which maximizes effects of neutron diffusion. Possible sources of baryon inhomogeneity include the QCD and electroweak phase transitions. The distance scale of the inhomogeneities arising from the electroweak transition is too small for them to have a large effect on nucleosynthesis, but the effect may still be larger than some of the other small corrections recently incorporated to SBBN codes.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, REVTe

Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Mutual Ion Diffusion

We present a study of inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis with emphasis on transport phenomena. We combine a hydrodynamic treatment to a nuclear reaction network and compute the light element abundances for a range of inhomogeneity parameters. We find that shortly after annihilation of electron-positron pairs, Thomson scattering on background photons prevents the diffusion of the remaining electrons. Protons and multiply charged ions then tend to diffuse into opposite directions so that no net charge is carried. Ions with Z>1 get enriched in the overdense regions, while protons diffuse out into regions of lower density. This leads to a second burst of nucleosynthesis in the overdense regions at T<20 keV, leading to enhanched destruction of deuterium and lithium. We find a region in the parameter space at 2.1E-10<eta<5.2E-10 where constraints 7Li/H<10^{-9.7} and D/H<10^{-4.4} are satisfied simultaneously.Comment: 9 pages, minor changes to match the PRD versio

Monte Carlo implementation of a guiding-center Fokker-Planck kinetic equation

A Monte Carlo method for the collisional guiding-center Fokker-Planck kinetic equation is derived to include the effects of background magnetic-field nonuniformity. It is shown that, in the limit of a homogeneous magnetic field, the guiding-center Monte Carlo collision operators reduce to the standard Coulomb operators. The coefficients required for the implementation of the method are also given.Comment: 17 page