Particle creation in a f(R) theory with cosmological constraints

In this paper we study the creation of super-massive real scalar particles in the framework of a $f(R)=R-\beta/R^n$ modified gravity theory, with parameters constrained by observational data. The analysis is restrict to a homogeneous and isotropic flat and radiation dominated universe. We compare the results to the standard Einstein gravity with cosmological constant ($\Lambda CDM$ model), and we show that the total number density of created particles in the $f(R)$ model is very close to the standard case. Another interesting result is that the spectrum of created particles is $\beta$ independent at early times.Comment: To appear in the General Relativity and Gravitation. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1108.334

Angular-planar CMB power spectrum

Gaussianity and statistical isotropy of the Universe are modern cosmology's minimal set of hypotheses. In this work we introduce a new statistical test to detect observational deviations from this minimal set. By defining the temperature correlation function over the whole celestial sphere, we are able to independently quantify both angular and planar dependence (modulations) of the CMB temperature power spectrum over different slices of this sphere. Given that planar dependence leads to further modulations of the usual angular power spectrum $C_l$, this test can potentially reveal richer structures in the morphology of the primordial temperature field. We have also constructed an unbiased estimator for this angular-planar power spectrum which naturally generalizes the estimator for the usual $C_l$'s. With the help of a chi-square analysis, we have used this estimator to search for observational deviations of statistical isotropy in WMAP's 5 year release data set (ILC5), where we found only slight anomalies on the angular scales $l=7$ and $l=8$. Since this angular-planar statistic is model-independent, it is ideal to employ in searches of statistical anisotropy (e.g., contaminations from the galactic plane) and to characterize non-Gaussianities.Comment: Replaced to match the published version. Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D80 063525 (2009