Addendum to "Superimposed Oscillations in the WMAP Data?"

We elaborate further on the possibility that the inflationary primordial power spectrum contains superimposed oscillations. We study various effects which could influence the calculation of the multipole moments in this case. We also present the theoretical predictions for two other cosmological observables, the matter power spectrum and the EE polarization channel.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, uses RevTex4, matches published versio

Superimposed Oscillations in the WMAP Data?

The possibility that the cosmic variance outliers present in the recently released WMAP multipole moments are due to oscillations in the primordial power spectrum is investigated. Since the most important contribution to the WMAP likelihood originates from the outliers at relatively small angular scale (around the first Doppler peak), special attention is paid to these in contrast with previous studies on the subject which have concentrated on the large scales outliers only (i.e. the quadrupole and octupole). As a physically motivated example, the case where the oscillations are of trans-Planckian origin is considered. It is shown that the presence of the oscillations causes an important drop in the WMAP chi square of about fifteen. The F-test reveals that such a drop has a probability less than 0.06% to occur by chance and can therefore be considered as statistically significant.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, uses RevTex 4, references added, matches published versio

Inflation, cold dark matter, and the central density problem

A problem with high central densities in dark halos has arisen in the context of LCDM cosmologies with scale-invariant initial power spectra. Although n=1 is often justified by appealing to the inflation scenario, inflationary models with mild deviations from scale-invariance are not uncommon and models with significant running of the spectral index are plausible. Even mild deviations from scale-invariance can be important because halo collapse times and densities depend on the relative amount of small-scale power. We choose several popular models of inflation and work out the ramifications for galaxy central densities. For each model, we calculate its COBE-normalized power spectrum and deduce the implied halo densities using a semi-analytic method calibrated against N-body simulations. We compare our predictions to a sample of dark matter-dominated galaxies using a non-parametric measure of the density. While standard n=1, LCDM halos are overdense by a factor of 6, several of our example inflation+CDM models predict halo densities well within the range preferred by observations. We also show how the presence of massive (0.5 eV) neutrinos may help to alleviate the central density problem even with n=1. We conclude that galaxy central densities may not be as problematic for the CDM paradigm as is sometimes assumed: rather than telling us something about the nature of the dark matter, galaxy rotation curves may be telling us something about inflation and/or neutrinos. An important test of this idea will be an eventual consensus on the value of sigma_8, the rms overdensity on the scale 8 h^-1 Mpc. Our successful models have values of sigma_8 approximately 0.75, which is within the range of recent determinations. Finally, models with n>1 (or sigma_8 > 1) are highly disfavored.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Minor changes made to reflect referee's Comments, error in Eq. (18) corrected, references updated and corrected, conclusions unchanged. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D, scheduled for 15 August 200

Codes of Fair Competition: The National Recovery Act, 1933-1935, and the Women’s Dress Manufacturing Industry

Controversial issues prevalent in today’s ready-to-wear apparel industry include the right of workers to join unions, the proliferation of sweatshops and sweatshop conditions, and design piracy. The idea of forming codes of conduct to establish criteria of ethical business practices is not new to the apparel industry. Indeed, the women’s dress manufacturing industry discussed and debated codes of fair competition under the New Deal Policies of the National Recovery Act (NRA) of 1933 to 1935. Primary sources for this study included governmental hearings in the establishment of the NRA Dress Code, The New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily, and the Journal of the Patent Office Society. The history of the NRA codes implemented in the U.S. women’s ready-to-wear apparel industry provides an important case study highlighting the difficulties and complexities of creating and achieving industry-wide standard practices through self-regulation. The failure of the NRA demonstrates that even with the joint cooperation of industry, labor, and consumer groups and the backing of the force of law, codes of fair competition proved impossible to enforce