Measuring primordial non-gaussianity without cosmic variance

Non-gaussianity in the initial conditions of the universe is one of the most powerful mechanisms to discriminate among the competing theories of the early universe. Measurements using bispectrum of cosmic microwave background anisotropies are limited by the cosmic variance, i.e. available number of modes. Recent work has emphasized the possibility to probe non-gaussianity of local type using the scale dependence of large scale bias from highly biased tracers of large scale structure. However, this power spectrum method is also limited by cosmic variance, finite number of structures on the largest scales, and by the partial degeneracy with other cosmological parameters that can mimic the same effect. Here we propose an alternative method that solves both of these problems. It is based on the idea that on large scales halos are biased, but not stochastic, tracers of dark matter: by correlating a highly biased tracer of large scale structure against an unbiased tracer one eliminates the cosmic variance error, which can lead to a high signal to noise even from the structures comparable to the size of the survey. The square of error improvement on non-gaussianity parameter f_nl relative to the power spectrum method scales as Pn/2, where P and n is the power spectrum and the number density of the biased tracer, respectively. For an ideal survey out to z=2 the error reduction can be as large as a factor of seven, which should guarantee a detection of non-gaussianity from an all sky survey of this type. The improvements could be even larger if high density tracers that are sensitive to non-gaussianity can be identified and measured over a large volume.Comment: 7 page

Polarization of the Microwave Background in Defect Models

We compute the polarization power spectra for global strings, monopoles, textures and nontopological textures, and compare them to inflationary models. We find that topological defect models predict a significant (1 microK) contribution to magnetic type polarization on degree angular scales, which is produced by the large vector component of the defect source. We also investigate the effect of decoherence on polarization. It leads to a smoothing of acoustic oscillations both in temperature and polarization power spectra and strongly suppresses the cross-correlation between temperature and polarization relative to inflationary models. Presence or absence of magnetic polarization or cross-correlation would be a strong discriminator between the two theories of structure formation and will be testable with the next generation of CMB satellites.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTeX fil

CMBFAST for spatially closed universes

We extend the cosmological linear perturbation theory code CMBFAST to closed geometries. This completes the implementation of CMBFAST to all types of geometries and allows the user to perform an unlimited search in the parameter space of models. This will be specially useful for placing confidence limits on cosmological parameters from existing and future data. We discuss some of the technical issues regarding the implementation.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, new version of CMBFAST can be found http://www.sns.ias.edu/~matiasz/CMBFAST/cmbfast.htm

Lensing effect on polarization in microwave background: extracting convergence power spectrum

Matter inhomogeneities along the line of sight deflect the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons originating at the last scattering surface at redshift $z \sim 1100$. These distortions modify the pattern of CMB polarization. We identify specific combinations of Stokes $Q$ and $U$ parameters that correspond to spin 0,$\pm 2$ variables and can be used to reconstruct the projected matter density. We compute the expected signal to noise as a function of detector sensitivity and angular resolution. With Planck satellite the detection would be at a few $\sigma$ level. Several times better detector sensitivity would be needed to measure the projected dark matter power spectrum over a wider range of scales, which could provide an independent confirmation of the projected matter power spectrum as measured from other methods.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in PR

Probing for Dynamics of Dark-Energy in Mass Varying Neutrinos: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and Large Scale Structure

We present cosmological perturbation theory in neutrino probe interacting dark-energy models, and calculate cosmic microwave background anisotropies and matter power spectrum. In these models, the evolution of the mass of neutrinos is determined by the quintessence scalar field, which is responsible for the cosmic acceleration today. We consider several types of scalar field potentials and put constraints on the coupling parameter between neutrinos and dark energy. Assuming the flatness of the universe, the constraint we can derive from the current observation is $\sum m_{\nu} < 0.87 eV$ at the 95 % confidence level for the sum over three species of neutrinos.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, Present in conferences COSPA-2006, NEPSE-2007 and Yong-Pyung APCTP-200

Gravitational lensing as a contaminant of the gravity wave signal in CMB

Gravity waves (GW) in the early universe generate B-type polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which can be used as a direct way to measure the energy scale of inflation. Gravitational lensing contaminates the GW signal by converting the dominant E polarization into B polarization. By reconstructing the lensing potential from CMB itself one can decontaminate the B mode induced by lensing. We present results of numerical simulations of B mode delensing using quadratic and iterative maximum-likelihood lensing reconstruction methods as a function of detector noise and beam. In our simulations we find the quadratic method can reduce the lensing B noise power by up to a factor of 7, close to the no noise limit. In contrast, the iterative method shows significant improvements even at the lowest noise levels we tested. We demonstrate explicitly that with this method at least a factor of 40 noise power reduction in lensing induced B power is possible, suggesting that T/S=10^-6 may be achievable in the absence of sky cuts, foregrounds, and instrumental systematics. While we do not find any fundamental lower limit due to lensing, we find that for high-sensitivity detectors residual lensing noise dominates over the detector noise.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR

Early reionization by decaying particles and cosmic microwave background radiation

We study the reionization scenario in which ionizing UV photons emitted from decaying particle, in addition to usual contributions from stars and quasars, ionize the universe. It is found that the scenario is consistent with both the first year data of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the fact that the universe is not fully ionized until z \sim 6 as observed by Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Likelihood analysis revealed that rather broad parameter space can be chosen. This scenario will be discriminated by future observations, especially by the EE polarization power spectrum of cosmic microwave background radiation.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, fig 2, table 1, and some typos are correcte

Testing Multi-Field Inflation with Galaxy Bias

Multi-field models of inflation predict an inequality between the amplitude tauNL of the collapsed limit of the four-point correlator of the primordial curvature perturbation and the amplitude fNL of the squeezed limit of its three-point correlator. While a convincing detection of non-Gaussianity through the squeezed limit of the three-point correlator would rule out all single-field models, a robust confirmation or disproval of the inequality between tauNL and fNL would provide crucial information about the validity of multi-field models of inflation. In this paper, we discuss to which extent future measurements of the scale-dependence of galaxy bias can test multi-field inflationary scenarios. The strong degeneracy between the effect of a non-vanishing fNL and tauNL on halo bias can be broken by considering multiple tracer populations of the same surveyed volume. If halos down to 1e13 Msun/h are resolved in a survey of volume 25(Gpc/h)^3, then testing multi-field models of inflation at the 3-\sigma level would require, for instance, a detection of tauNL at the level of tauNL~1e5 given a measurement of a local bispectrum with amplitude fNL~10. However, we find that disproving multi-field models of inflation with measurements of the non-Gaussian bias only will be very challenging, unless |fNL| > 80 and one can achieve a halo mass resolution of 1e10 Msun/h.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Power Spectra in Global Defect Theories of Cosmic Structure Formation

An efficient technique for computing perturbation power spectra in field ordering theories of cosmic structure formation is introduced, enabling computations to be carried out with unprecedented precision. Large scale simulations are used to measure unequal time correlators of the source stress energy, taking advantage of scaling during matter and radiation domination, and causality, to make optimal use of the available dynamic range. The correlators are then re-expressed in terms of a sum of eigenvector products, a representation which we argue is optimal, enabling the computation of the final power spectra to be performed at high accuracy. Microwave anisotropy and matter perturbation power spectra for global strings, monopoles, textures and non-topological textures are presented and compared with recent observations.Comment: 4 pages, compressed and uuencoded RevTex file and postscript figure

Constraints on non-thermal Dark Matter from Planck lensing extraction

Distortions of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropy maps caused by gravitational lensing, observable with high angular resolution and sensitivity, can be used to constrain the sterile neutrino mass, offering several advantages against the analysis based on the combination of CMB, LSS and Ly\alpha forest power spectra. As the gravitational lensing effect depends on the matter distribution, no assumption on light-to-mass bias is required. In addition, unlike the galaxy clustering and Ly\alpha forest power spectra, the projected gravitational potential power spectrum probes a larger range of angular scales, the non-linear corrections being required only at very small scales. Taking into account the changes in the time-temperature relation of the primordial plasma and the modification of the neutrino thermal potential, we compute the projected gravitational potential power spectrum and its correlation with the temperature in the presence of DM sterile neutrino. We show that the cosmological parameters are generally not biased when DM sterile neutrino is included. From this analysis we found a lower limit on DM sterile neutrino mass m_s >2.08 keV at 95% CL, consistent with the lower mass limit obtained from the combined analysis of CMB, SDSS 3D power spectrum and SDSS Ly\alpha forest power spectrum ($m_{\nu_s}>1.7$ keV). We conclude that although the information that can be obtained from lensing extraction is rather limited due to the high level of the lensing noise of Planck experiment, weak lensing of CMB offers a valuable alternative to constrain the dark matter sterile neutrino mass.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure