Free Differential Algebras: Their Use in Field Theory and Dual Formulation

The gauging of free differential algebras (FDA's) produces gauge field theories containing antisymmetric tensors. The FDA's extend the Cartan-Maurer equations of ordinary Lie algebras by incorporating p-form potentials ($p > 1$). We study here the algebra of FDA transformations. To every p-form in the FDA we associate an extended Lie derivative $\ell$ generating a corresponding ``gauge" transformation. The field theory based on the FDA is invariant under these new transformations. This gives geometrical meaning to the antisymmetric tensors. The algebra of Lie derivatives is shown to close and provides the dual formulation of FDA's.Comment: 10 pages, latex, no figures. Talk presented at the 4-th Colloquium on "Quantum Groups and Integrable Sysytems", Prague, June 199

Reconstruction of the cosmic microwave background lensing for Planck

Aims. We prepare real-life cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing extraction with the forthcoming Planck satellite data by studying two systematic effects related to the foreground contamination: the impact of foreground residuals after a component separation on the lensed CMB map, and the impact of removing a large contaminated region of the sky. Methods. We first use the generalized morphological component analysis (GMCA) method to perform a component separation within a simplified framework, which allows a high statistics Monte-Carlo study. For the second systematic, we apply a realistic mask on the temperature maps and then restore them with a recently developed inpainting technique on the sphere. We investigate the reconstruction of the CMB lensing from the resultant maps using a quadratic estimator in the flat sky limit and on the full sphere. Results. We find that the foreground residuals from the GMCA method does not significantly alter the lensed signal, which is also true for the mask corrected with the inpainting method, even in the presence of point source residuals

Widespread association between the ericoid mycorrhizal fungus Rhizoscyphus ericae and a leafy liverwort in the maritime and sub-Antarctic

A recent study identified a fungal isolate from the Antarctic leafy liverwort Cephaloziella varians as the ericoid mycorrhizal associate Rhizoscyphus ericae. However, nothing is known about the wider Antarctic distribution of R. ericae in C. varians, and inoculation experiments confirming the ability of the fungus to form coils in the liverwort are lacking. Using direct isolation and baiting with Vaccinium macrocarpon seedlings, fungi were isolated from C. varians sampled from eight sites across a 1875-km transect through sub- and maritime Antarctica. The ability of an isolate to form coils in aseptically grown C. varians was also tested. Fungi with 98–99% sequence identity to R. ericae internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and partial large subunit ribosomal (r)DNA sequences were frequently isolated from C. varians at all sites sampled. The EF4/Fung5 primer set did not amplify small subunit rDNA from three of five R. ericae isolates, probably accounting for the reported absence of the fungus from C. varians in a previous study. Rhizoscyphus ericae was found to colonize aseptically-grown C. varians intracellularly, forming hyphal coils. This study shows that the association between R. ericae and C. varians is apparently widespread in Antarctica, and confirms that R. ericae is at least in part responsible for the formation of the coils observed in rhizoids of field-collected C. varians

Isocurvature forecast in the anthropic axion window

We explore the cosmological sensitivity to the amplitude of isocurvature fluctuations that would be caused by axions in the "anthropic window" where the axion decay constant f_a >> 10^12 GeV and the initial misalignment angle Theta_i << 1. In a minimal Lambda-CDM cosmology extended with subdominant scale-invariant isocurvature fluctuations, existing data constrain the isocurvature fraction to alpha < 0.09 at 95% C.L. If no signal shows up, Planck can improve this constraint to 0.042 while an ultimate CMB probe limited only by cosmic variance in both temperature and E-polarisation can reach 0.017, about a factor of five better than the current limit. In the parameter space of f_a and H_I (Hubble parameter during inflation) we identify a small region where axion detection remains within the reach of realistic cosmological probes.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; v2: matches published versio

Effects of CMB temperature uncertainties on cosmological parameter estimation

We estimate the effect of the experimental uncertainty in the measurement of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on the extraction of cosmological parameters from future CMB surveys. We find that even for an ideal experiment limited only by cosmic variance up to l = 2500 for both the temperature and polarisation measurements, the projected cosmological parameter errors are remarkably robust against the uncertainty of 1 mK in the FIRAS instrument's CMB temperature monopole measurement. The maximum degradation in sensitivity is 20%, for the baryon density estimate, relative to the case in which the monopole is known infinitely well. While this degradation is acceptable, we note that reducing the uncertainty in the current temperature measurement by a factor of five will bring it down to the per cent level. We also estimate the effect of the uncertainty in the dipole temperature measurement. Assuming the overall calibration of the data to be dominated by the dipole error of 0.2% from FIRAS, the sensitivity degradation is insignificant and does not exceed 10% in any parameter direction.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, uses iopart.cls, v2: added discussion of CMB dipole uncertainty, version accepted by JCA

Probing polarization states of primordial gravitational waves with CMB anisotropies

We discuss the polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves imprinted in cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. The high-energy physics motivated by superstring theory or M-theory generically yield parity violating terms, which may produce a circularly polarized gravitational wave background (GWB) during inflation. In contrast to the standard prediction of inflation with un-polarized GWB, circularly polarized GWB generates non-vanishing TB and EB-mode power spectra of CMB anisotropies. We evaluate the TB and EB-mode power spectra taking into account the secondary effects and investigate the dependence of cosmological parameters. We then discuss current constraints on the circularly polarized GWB from large angular scales (l < 16) of the three year WMAP data. Prospects for future CMB experiments are also investigated based on a Monte Carlo analysis of parameter estimation, showing that the circular polarization degree, varepsilon, which is the asymmetry of the tensor power spectra between right- and left-handed modes normalized by the total amplitude, can be measured down to |varepsilon| 0.35(r/0.05)^{-0.6}.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in JCA

Using BBN in cosmological parameter extraction from CMB: a forecast for Planck

Data from future high-precision Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements will be sensitive to the primordial Helium abundance $Y_p$. At the same time, this parameter can be predicted from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) as a function of the baryon and radiation densities, as well as a neutrino chemical potential. We suggest to use this information to impose a self-consistent BBN prior on $Y_p$ and determine its impact on parameter inference from simulated Planck data. We find that this approach can significantly improve bounds on cosmological parameters compared to an analysis which treats $Y_p$ as a free parameter, if the neutrino chemical potential is taken to vanish. We demonstrate that fixing the Helium fraction to an arbitrary value can seriously bias parameter estimates. Under the assumption of degenerate BBN (i.e., letting the neutrino chemical potential $\xi$ vary), the BBN prior's constraining power is somewhat weakened, but nevertheless allows us to constrain $\xi$ with an accuracy that rivals bounds inferred from present data on light element abundances.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; v2: minor changes, matches published versio

Measuring neutrino masses with a future galaxy survey

We perform a detailed forecast on how well a Euclid-like photometric galaxy and cosmic shear survey will be able to constrain the absolute neutrino mass scale. Adopting conservative assumptions about the survey specifications and assuming complete ignorance of the galaxy bias, we estimate that the minimum mass sum of sum m_nu ~ 0.06 eV in the normal hierarchy can be detected at 1.5 sigma to 2.5 sigma significance, depending on the model complexity, using a combination of galaxy and cosmic shear power spectrum measurements in conjunction with CMB temperature and polarisation observations from Planck. With better knowledge of the galaxy bias, the significance of the detection could potentially reach 5.4 sigma. Interestingly, neither Planck+shear nor Planck+galaxy alone can achieve this level of sensitivity; it is the combined effect of galaxy and cosmic shear power spectrum measurements that breaks the persistent degeneracies between the neutrino mass, the physical matter density, and the Hubble parameter. Notwithstanding this remarkable sensitivity to sum m_nu, Euclid-like shear and galaxy data will not be sensitive to the exact mass spectrum of the neutrino sector; no significant bias (< 1 sigma) in the parameter estimation is induced by fitting inaccurate models of the neutrino mass splittings to the mock data, nor does the goodness-of-fit of these models suffer any significant degradation relative to the true one (Delta chi_eff ^2< 1).Comment: v1: 29 pages, 10 figures. v2: 33 pages, 12 figures; added sections on shape evolution and constraints in more complex models, accepted for publication in JCA

Cosmological parameters from large scale structure - geometric versus shape information

The matter power spectrum as derived from large scale structure (LSS) surveys contains two important and distinct pieces of information: an overall smooth shape and the imprint of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). We investigate the separate impact of these two types of information on cosmological parameter estimation, and show that for the simplest cosmological models, the broad-band shape information currently contained in the SDSS DR7 halo power spectrum (HPS) is by far superseded by geometric information derived from the baryonic features. An immediate corollary is that contrary to popular beliefs, the upper limit on the neutrino mass m_\nu presently derived from LSS combined with cosmic microwave background (CMB) data does not in fact arise from the possible small-scale power suppression due to neutrino free-streaming, if we limit the model framework to minimal LambdaCDM+m_\nu. However, in more complicated models, such as those extended with extra light degrees of freedom and a dark energy equation of state parameter w differing from -1, shape information becomes crucial for the resolution of parameter degeneracies. This conclusion will remain true even when data from the Planck surveyor become available. In the course of our analysis, we introduce a new dewiggling procedure that allows us to extend consistently the use of the SDSS HPS to models with an arbitrary sound horizon at decoupling. All the cases considered here are compatible with the conservative 95%-bounds \sum m_\nu < 1.16 eV, N_eff = 4.8 \pm 2.0.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures; v2: references added, matches published versio

Constraining Light Gravitino Mass from Cosmic Microwave Background

We investigate the possibilities of constraining the light gravitino mass m_{3/2} from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys. A model with light gravitino with the mass m_{3/2}<O(10) eV is of great interest since it is free from the cosmological gravitino problem and, in addition, can be compatible with many baryogenesis/leptogenesis scenarios such as the thermal leptogenesis. We show that the lensing of CMB anisotropies can be a good probe for m_{3/2} and obtain an expected constraint on m_{3/2} from precise measurements of lensing potential in the future CMB surveys, such as the PolarBeaR and CMBpol experiments. If the gravitino mass is m_{3/2}=1 eV, we will obtain the constraint for the gravitino mass as m_{3/2} < 3.2 eV (95% C.L.) for the case with Planck+PolarBeaR combined and m_{3/2}=1.04^{+0.22}_{-0.26} eV (68% C.L.) for CMBpol. The issue of Bayesian model selection is also discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, references are added, accepted for publication in JCA