1,273 research outputs found
Reproducing the observed Cosmic microwave background anisotropies with causal scaling seeds
During the last years it has become clear that global O(N) defects and U(1)
cosmic strings do not lead to the pronounced first acoustic peak in the power
spectrum of anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background which has recently
been observed to high accuracy. Inflationary models cannot easily accommodate
the low second peak indicated by the data. Here we construct causal scaling
seed models which reproduce the first and second peak. Future, more precise CMB
anisotropy and polarization experiments will however be able to distinguish
them from the ordinary adiabatic models.Comment: 6 pages 2 figures, revtex; minor corrections and references adde
CMB anisotropies from pre-big bang cosmology
We present an alternative scenario for cosmic structure formation where
initial fluctuations are due to Kalb-Ramond axions produced during a pre-big
bang phase of inflation. We investigate whether this scenario, where the
fluctuations are induced by seeds and therefore are of isocurvature nature, can
be brought in agreement with present observations by a suitable choice of
cosmological parameters. We also discuss several observational signatures which
can distinguish axion seeds from standard inflationary models. We finally
discuss the gravitational wave background induced in this model and we show
that it may be well within the range of future observations.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figures, corrected some typo
Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature at Galaxy Clusters
We have deduced the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature in the Coma
cluster (A1656, ), and in A2163 () from spectral
measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect over four passbands at radio
and microwave frequencies. The resulting temperatures at these redshifts are
K and K, respectively. These values confirm the expected
relation , where K is the value
measured by the COBE/FIRAS experiment. Alternative scaling relations that are
conjectured in non-standard cosmologies can be constrained by the data; for
example, if or , then
and (at 95% confidence). We
briefly discuss future prospects for more precise SZ measurements of at
higher redshifts.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, ApJL accepted for publicatio
A Multi-Parameter Investigation of Gravitational Slip
A detailed analysis of gravitational slip, a new post-general relativity
cosmological parameter characterizing the degree of departure of the laws of
gravitation from general relativity on cosmological scales, is presented. This
phenomenological approach assumes that cosmic acceleration is due to new
gravitational effects; the amount of spacetime curvature produced per unit mass
is changed in such a way that a universe containing only matter and radiation
begins to accelerate as if under the influence of a cosmological constant.
Changes in the law of gravitation are further manifest in the behavior of the
inhomogeneous gravitational field, as reflected in the cosmic microwave
background, weak lensing, and evolution of large-scale structure. The new
parameter, , is naively expected to be of order unity. However, a
multiparameter analysis, allowing for variation of all the standard
cosmological parameters, finds that
where corresponds to a CDM universe under general
relativity. Future probes of the cosmic microwave background (Planck) and
large-scale structure (Euclid) may improve the limits by a factor of four.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, colo
Towards a future singularity?
We discuss whether the future extrapolation of the present cosmological state
may lead to a singularity even in case of "conventional" (negative) pressure of
the dark energy field, namely . The discussion is based on an
often neglected aspect of scalar-tensor models of gravity: the fact that
different test particles may follow the geodesics of different metric frames,
and the need for a frame-independent regularization of curvature singularities.Comment: 8 pages. Essay written for the "2004 Awards for Essays on
Gravitation" (Gravity Research Foundation, Wellesley Hills, MA, USA), and
selected for "Honorable Mention
Future weak lensing constraints in a dark coupled universe
Coupled cosmologies can predict values for the cosmological parameters at low
redshifts which may differ substantially from the parameters values within
non-interacting cosmologies. Therefore, low redshift probes, as the growth of
structure and the dark matter distribution via galaxy and weak lensing surveys
constitute a unique tool to constrain interacting dark sector models. We focus
here on weak lensing forecasts from future Euclid and LSST-like surveys
combined with the ongoing Planck cosmic microwave background experiment. We
find that these future data could constrain the dimensionless coupling to be
smaller than a few . The coupling parameter is strongly
degenerate with the cold dark matter energy density and the
Hubble constant .These degeneracies may cause important biases in the
cosmological parameter values if in the universe there exists an interaction
among the dark matter and dark energy sectors.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Determining the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy with Cosmology
The combination of current large scale structure and cosmic microwave
background (CMB) anisotropies data can place strong constraints on the sum of
the neutrino masses. Here we show that future cosmic shear experiments, in
combination with CMB constraints, can provide the statistical accuracy required
to answer questions about differences in the mass of individual neutrino
species. Allowing for the possibility that masses are non-degenerate we combine
Fisher matrix forecasts for a weak lensing survey like Euclid with those for
the forthcoming Planck experiment. Under the assumption that neutrino mass
splitting is described by a normal hierarchy we find that the combination
Planck and Euclid will possibly reach enough sensitivity to put a constraint on
the mass of a single species. Using a Bayesian evidence calculation we find
that such future experiments could provide strong evidence for either a normal
or an inverted neutrino hierachy. Finally we show that if a particular neutrino
hierachy is assumed then this could bias cosmological parameter constraints,
for example the dark energy equation of state parameter, by > 1\sigma, and the
sum of masses by 2.3\sigma.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 3 table
The power spectrum of systematics in cosmic shear tomography and the bias on cosmological parameters
Cosmic shear tomography has emerged as one of the most promising tools to
both investigate the nature of dark energy and discriminate between General
Relativity and modified gravity theories. In order to successfully achieve
these goals, systematics in shear measurements have to be taken into account;
their impact on the weak lensing power spectrum has to be carefully
investigated in order to estimate the bias induced on the inferred cosmological
parameters. To this end, we develop here an efficient tool to compute the power
spectrum of systematics by propagating, in a realistic way, shear measurement,
source properties and survey setup uncertainties. Starting from analytical
results for unweighted moments and general assumptions on the relation between
measured and actual shear, we derive analytical expressions for the
multiplicative and additive bias, showing how these terms depend not only on
the shape measurement errors, but also on the properties of the source galaxies
(namely, size, magnitude and spectral energy distribution). We are then able to
compute the amplitude of the systematics power spectrum and its scaling with
redshift, while we propose a multigaussian expansion to model in a
non-parametric way its angular scale dependence. Our method allows to
self-consistently propagate the systematics uncertainties to the finally
observed shear power spectrum, thus allowing us to quantify the departures from
the actual spectrum. We show that even a modest level of systematics can induce
non-negligible deviations, thus leading to a significant bias on the recovered
cosmological parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 5 tables, 4 figure
Future CMB Constraints on Early, Cold, or Stressed Dark Energy
We investigate future constraints on early dark energy (EDE) achievable by
the Planck and CMBPol experiments, including cosmic microwave background (CMB)
lensing. For the dark energy, we include the possibility of clustering through
a sound speed c_s^2 <1 (cold dark energy) and anisotropic stresses
parameterized with a viscosity parameter c_vis^2. We discuss the degeneracies
between cosmological parameters and EDE parameters. In particular we show that
the presence of anisotropic stresses in EDE models can substantially undermine
the determination of the EDE sound speed parameter c_s^2. The constraints on
EDE primordial energy density are however unaffected. We also calculate the
future CMB constraints on neutrino masses and find that they are weakened by a
factor of 2 when allowing for the presence of EDE, and highly biased if it is
incorrectly ignored.Comment: 12 pages, 19 figure
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