Large-scale cosmic microwave background anisotropies and dark energy

In this paper we investigate the effects of perturbations in a dark energy component with a constant equation of state on large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. The inclusion of perturbations increases the large-scale power. We investigate more speculative dark energy models with   w < −1  and find the opposite behaviour. Overall the inclusion of perturbations in the dark energy component increases the degeneracies. We generalize the parametrization of the dark energy fluctuations to allow for an arbitrary constant sound speed, and we show how constraints from CMB experiments change if this is included. Combining CMB with large-scale structure, Hubble parameter and supernovae observations we obtain   w =−1.02 ± 0.16 (1σ)  as a constraint on the equation of state, which is almost independent of the sound speed chosen. With the presented analysis we find no significant constraint on the constant speed of sound of the dark energy component.     

Cosmic microwave background polarisation: foreground contrast and component separation

We evaluate the expected level of foreground contamination to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarised radiation, focusing on the diffuse emission from our own Galaxy. In particular, we perform a first attempt to simulate an all sky template of polarised emission from thermal dust. This study indicates that the foreground contamination to CMB B-modes is likely to be relevant on all frequencies, and even at high Galactic latitudes. We review the recent developments in the design of data analysis techniques dedicated to the separation of CMB and foreground emissions in multi-frequency observations, exploiting their statistical independence. We argue that the high quality and detail of the present CMB observations represent an almost ideal statistical dataset where these algorithms can operate with excellent performance. We explicitly show that the recovery of CMB B-modes is possible even if they are well below the foreground level, working at the arcminute resolution at an almost null computational cost. This capability well represents the great potentiality of these new data analysis techniques, which should be seriously taken into account for implementation in present and future CMB observations.     

On the viability of a certain vector-tensor theory of gravitation

A certain vector-tensor theory is revisited. Our attention is focused on cosmology. Against previous suggestions based on preliminary studies, it is shown that, if the energy density of the vector field is large enough to play the role of the dark energy and its fluctuations are negligible, the theory is not simultaneously compatible with current observations on: supernovae, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy, and the power spectrum of the energy density fluctuations. However, for small enough energy densities of the vector field and no scalar fluctuations, the theory becomes compatible with all the above observations and, moreover, it leads to an interesting evolution of the so-called vector cosmological modes. This evolution appears to be different from that of general relativity, and the difference might be useful to explain the anomalies in the low order CMB multipoles.     

Measuring statistical isotropy of CMB anisotropy

The statistical expectation values of the temperature fluctuations and polarization of cosmic microwave background (CMB) are assumed to be preserved under rotations of the sky. We investigate the statistical isotropy (SI) of the CMB maps recently measured by the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP) using the bipolar spherical harmonic formalism proposed in Hajian and Souradeep [Hajian, A., Souradeep, T. (2003) Astrophys. J. Lett. 597, L5] for CMB temperature anisotropy and extended to CMB polarization in Basak, Hajian and Souradeep [Basak, S., Hajian, A., Souradeep, T. (2006) Phys. Rev. D74, 02130(R)]. The Bipolar Power Spectrum (BiPS) had been measured for the full sky CMB anisotropy maps of the first year WMAP data and now for the recently released three years of WMAP data. We also introduce and measure directional sensitive reduced Bipolar coefficients on the three year WMAP ILC map. Consistent with our published results from first year WMAP data we have no evidence for violation of statistical isotropy on large angular scales. Preliminary analysis of the recently released first WMAP polarization maps, however, indicate significant violation of SI even when the foreground contaminated regions are masked out. Further work is required to confirm a possible cosmic origin and rule out the (more likely) origin in observational artifact such as foreground residuals at high galactic latitude.     

Bayesian foreground analysis with CMB data

The quality of CMB observations has improved dramatically in the last few years, and will continue to do so in the coming decade. Over a wide range of angular scales, the uncertainty due to instrumental noise is now small compared to the cosmic variance. One may claim with some justification that we have entered the era of precision CMB cosmology. However, some caution is still warranted: The errors due to residual foreground contamination in the CMB power spectrum and cosmological parameters remain largely unquantified, and the effect of these errors on important cosmological parameters such as the optical depth τ and spectral index n_s is not obvious. A major goal for current CMB analysis efforts must therefore be to develop methods that allow us to propagate such uncertainties from the raw data through to the final products. Here we review a recently proposed method that may be a first step towards that goal.     

Statistics of WMAP ILC map temperature fluctuations towards distant radio galaxies

For 2442 galaxies of the catalog, compiled based on the NED, SDSS, and CATS survey data with redshifts z, > 0.3 we conducted an analysis of the amplitude of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in the points, corresponding to the direction to these objects. To this end, we used the ILC map from the WMAP mission seven-year data release. We have estimated the dipole component of the background and tested the hypothesis of Kashlinsky on the existence of a “dark bulk flow”, determined for the estimated dipole component of the CMB WMAP by the value of the CMB anisotropy in the direction to the clusters of galaxies. We show that the amplitude of this dipole T _max = 0.012mK is located within the σ interval, estimated by Monte Carlo simulations for the Gaussian fluctuations of the CMB signal in the ΛCDM model. The low amplitude of the dipole indicates that it is impossible to confirm this hypothesis from the WMAP data. In addition, we studied the statistics of the fluctuation amplitude of the microwave signal in the direction to radio galaxies. A weakening of the absolute value of the mean signal in the corresponding fields was discovered.     

Principal-component analysis of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies: revealing the tensor degeneracy

A principal-component analysis of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements is used to investigate degeneracies among cosmological parameters. The results show that a degeneracy with tensor modes – the 'tensor degeneracy'– dominates uncertainties in estimates of the baryon and cold dark matter densities,   ω _b=Ω_b  h ²  ,   ω _c=Ω_c  h ²  , ¹ from an analysis of CMB anisotropies alone. The principal-component analysis agrees well with a maximum-likelihood analysis of the observations, identifying the main degeneracy directions and providing an impression of the effective dimensionality of the parameter space.     

Constraints on large-scale inhomogeneities from WMAP5 and SDSS: confrontation with recent observations

Measurements of the Type Ia supernovae Hubble diagram which suggest that the Universe is accelerating due to the effect of dark energy may be biased because we are located in a 200–300 Mpc underdense 'void' which is expanding 20–30 per cent faster than the average rate. With the smaller global Hubble parameter, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 5 data on cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies can be fitted without requiring dark energy if there is some excess power in the spectrum of primordial perturbations on 100 Mpc scales. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data on galaxy clustering can also be fitted if there is a small component of hot dark matter in the form of 0.5 eV mass neutrinos. We show however that if the primordial fluctuations are Gaussian, the expected variance of the Hubble parameter and the matter density are far too small to allow such a large local void. Nevertheless, many such large voids have been identified in the SDSS Luminous Red Galaxy survey in a search for the late integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect due to dark energy. The observed CMB temperature decrements imply that they are nearly empty, thus these real voids too are in gross conflict with the concordance Λ cold dark matter model. The recently observed high peculiar velocity flow presents another challenge for the model. Therefore, whether a large local void actually exists must be tested through observations and cannot be dismissed a priori.     

Constraints on structure formation models from the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect

In the context of cold dark matter (CDM) cosmological models, we have simulated images of the brightness temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky owing to the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (S–Z) effect in a cosmological distribution of clusters. We compare the image statistics with recent ATCA limits on arcmin-scale CMB anisotropy. The S–Z effect produces a generically non-Gaussian field and we compute the variance in the simulated temperature-anisotropy images, after convolution with the ATCA beam pattern, for different cosmological models. All the models are normalized to the 4-yr COBE data. We find an increase in the simulated-sky temperature variance with increase in the cosmological density parameter Ω₀. A comparison with the upper limits on the sky variance set by the ATCA appears to rule out our closed-universe model: low-Ω₀ open-universe models are preferred. The result is independent of any present day observations of σ ₈.     

The cosmic microwave background for a nearly flat compact hyperbolic universe

The fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are investigated for a hyperbolic universe with finite volume. Four-component models with radiation, matter, vacuum energy and an extra spatially constant dark energy X -component are considered. The general solution of the Friedmann equation for the cosmic scalefactor a ( η ) is given for the four-component models in terms of the Weierstrass ℘-function. The lower parts of the angular power spectra C _l of the CMB anisotropy are computed for nearly flat models with Ω_tot≤0.95. It is shown that the particular compact fundamental cell that is considered in this paper leads to a suppression in C _l for l ≲10 and Ω_tot≲0.9.     

Statefinder diagnosis and the interacting ghost model of dark energy

A new model of dark energy namely “ghost dark energy model” has recently been suggested to interpret the positive acceleration of cosmic expansion. The energy density of ghost dark energy is proportional to the hubble parameter. In this paper we perform the statefinder diagnostic tool for this model both in flat and non-flat universe. We discuss the dependency of the evolutionary trajectories in s–r and q–r planes on the interaction parameter between dark matter and dark energy as well as the spatial curvature parameter of the universe. Eventually, in the light of SNe+BAO+OHD+CMB observational data, we plot the evolutionary trajectories in s–r and q–r planes for the best fit values of the cosmological parameters and compare the interacting ghost model with other dynamical dark energy models. We show that the evolutionary trajectory of ghost dark energy in statefinder diagram is similar to holographic dark energy model. Finally, it has been shown that from the viewpoint of statefinder analysis, the ghost dark energy model has a better agreement with observations compare with holographic and new holographic dark energy models.     

Univiewer utility for fast interactive 3D visualization of CMB maps in HEALPix pixelizaton

We describe the Univiewer utility for visualizing the celestialmaps in the HEALPix pixelization scheme, which is widely used in data reduction for various experiments involving observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The utility can be used to view the FITS files containing one or several extensions containing HEALPix maps of temperature, intensities, Stokes parameters, integration time per pixel values, etc. The user can interactively change the visualization parameters, apply a coordinate grid, project sky areas onto a plane for further detailed analyses, and compute power spectra. The utility uses OpenGL and wxWidgets cross-platform libraries.     

Is an 11 eV sterile neutrino consistent with clusters, the cosmic microwave background and modified Newtonian dynamics?

In this paper, we show that if a single sterile neutrino exists such that     , it can serendipitously solve all outstanding issues of the Modified Newtonian Dynamics. We focus on fitting the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in detail which is possible using a flat Universe with     and the usual baryonic and dark energy components. One cannot match the CMB if there is more than one massive sterile neutrino, nor with three active neutrinos of 2 eV. This model has the same expansion history as the Λ cold dark matter  (ΛCDM)  model and only differs at the galactic scale, where the modified dynamics outperform  ΛCDM  comprehensively. We discuss how an 11 eV sterile neutrino can explain the dark matter of galaxy clusters without influencing individual galaxies and potentially match the matter power spectrum.     

Measuring velocities using the CMB and LSS

Here is discussed various ways by which the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation can be use to measure the velocities of matter in the universe. We include some new statistical techniques for using the kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect and integrated Sachs–Wolfe (ISW) effect to determine velocities by correlating wide area CMB maps with overlapping large-scale structure (LSS) surveys.     

Search for correlations of GRB and cosmic rays

It is possible that violent processes resulting in Gamma Ray Bursts produce also high energy photons and cosmic rays. The possible correlations of very short GRB with, e.g., CMB, cosmic rays is briefly discussed. We have also begun preparation of the experiment correlating in real time data from Maze cosmic ray detector and Pi of the Sky robotic telescope.     

Observational tests of x-matter models

We study gravitational lensing statistics, matter power spectra and the angular power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in x-matter models. We adopt an equation of state of x-matter which can express a wide range of matter from pressureless dust to the cosmological constant. A new ingredient in this model is the sound speed of the x-component, in addition to the equation of state w ₀ =  p _x0/ρ_x0. Except for the cosmological constant case, the perturbations of x-matter itself are considered. Our primary interest is in the effect of non-zero sound speed on the structure formation and the CMB spectra. It is found that there exist parameter ranges where x-matter models are consistent with all current observations. The x-matter generally leaves imprints in the CMB anisotropy and the matter power spectrum, which should be detectable in future observations.     

Nonresonant effects and hydrogen transition line shape in cosmological recombination problems

Data on the fluctuations in cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, whose accuracy is expected to increase in the immediate future, allow the cosmological recombination of atomic hydrogen and its interaction with the CMB radiation to be studied. Nonresonant effects play an important role in these recombination processes. We consider the quantum-mechanical foundations of the nonresonant processes and present our calculations for the differential two-photon decay rates of the 3s and 3d levels in the hydrogen atom. This article was submitted by the authors in English.     

Decay of the vacuum energy into cosmic microwave background photons

We examine the possibility of the decay of the vacuum energy into a homogeneous distribution of a thermalized cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is characteristic of an adiabatic vacuum energy decay into photons. It is shown that observations of the primordial density fluctuation spectrum, obtained from CMB and galaxy distribution data, restrict the possible decay rate. When photon creation due to an adiabatic vacuum energy decay takes place, the standard linear temperature dependence   T ( z ) = T ₀(1 + z )  is modified, where T ₀ is the present CMB temperature, and can be parametrized by a modified CMB temperature dependence     . From the observed CMB and galaxy distribution data, a strong limit on the maximum value of the decay rate is obtained by placing a maximum value  β_max≃ 3.4 × 10⁻³  on the β parameter.     

Angular power spectrum of CMB anisotropy from WMAP

The remarkable improvement in the estimates of different cosmological parameters in recent years has been largely spearheaded by accurate measurements of the angular power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. This has required removal of foreground contamination as well as detector noise bias with reliability and precision. Recently, a novel model-independent method for the estimation of CMB angular power spectrum from multi-frequency observations has been proposed and implemented on the first year WMAP (WMAP-1) data by Saha et al. [Saha, R., Jain, P., Souradeep, T., 2006. ApJL, 645, L89]. We review the results from WMAP-1 and also present the new angular power spectrum based on three years of the WMAP data (WMAP-3). Previous estimates have depended on foreground templates built using extraneous observational input to remove foreground contamination. This is the first demonstration that the CMB angular spectrum can be reliably estimated with precision from a self contained analysis of the WMAP data. The primary product of WMAP are the observations of CMB in 10 independent difference assemblies (DA) distributed over five frequency bands that have uncorrelated noise. Our method utilizes maximum information available within WMAP data by linearly combining DA maps from different frequencies to remove foregrounds and estimating the power spectrum from the 24 cross-power spectra of clean maps that have independent noise. An important merit of the method is that the expected residual power from unresolved point sources is significantly tempered to a constant offset at large multipoles (in contrast to the l² contribution expected from a Poisson distribution) leading to a small correction at large multipoles. Hence, the power spectrum estimates are less susceptible to uncertainties in the model of point sources.     

Understanding the WMAP Cold Spot mystery

The Cold Spot (CS) at galactic coordinates (b = −57°, l = 209°) was discovered in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)data as a cosmic background anomaly. In order to assess the cosmological significance of the Spot, we examine its properties using the cluster analysis of the local extrema in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal. We also check the hypothesis that the CMB signal has a non-Gaussian tail, localized in the low-multipole components. We constructed a linear filter, dividing the signal into two parts: non-Gaussian and Gaussian. Using the filter scale as a variable, we can maximize the skewness and kurtosis of the smoothed signal and minimize these statistics. We discovered that the shape of the CS is formed primarily by the components of the CMB signal represented by the multipoles between 10 ≤ ℓ ≤ 20, with a corresponding angular scale of about 5°–10°. This signal leads to the modulation of the CMB on the whole sky, clearly seen at |b| > 30° in both the ILC andWCM maps, rather than in a single localized feature. After subtraction of this modulation, the remaining part of the CMB signal appears to be consistent with statistical homogeneity and Gaussianity. We therefore infer that the mystery of the WMAP Cold Spot reflects directly the peculiarities of low multipoles of the CMB signal, rather than a single local (isolated) defect or the manifestations of a globally anisotropic cosmology.