Search results for "CMB"
showing 10 items of 30 documents
Cosmological bounds on neutrino statistics
2018
We consider the phenomenological implications of the violation of the Pauli exclusion principle for neutrinos, focusing on cosmological observables such as the spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the primordial abundances of light elements. Neutrinos that behave (at least partly) as bosonic particles have a modified equilibrium distribution function that implies a different influence on the evolution of the Universe that, in the case of massive neutrinos, can not be simply parametrized by a change in the effective number of neutrinos. Our results show that, despite the precision of the available cosmological data, only very weak bounds can …
Constraints on dark matter annihilation from CMB observations before Planck
2013
We compute the bounds on the dark matter (DM) annihilation cross section using the most recent Cosmic Microwave Background measurements from WMAP9, SPT'11 and ACT'10. We consider DM with mass in the MeV-TeV range annihilating 100% into either an e(+)e(-) or a mu(+)mu(-) pair. We consider a realistic energy deposition model, which includes the dependence on the redshift, DM mass and annihilation channel. We exclude the canonical thermal relic abundance cross section ( = 3 x 10(-26) cm(3)s(-1)) for DM masses below 30 GeV and 15 GeV for the e(+)e(-) and mu(+)mu(-) channels, respectively. A priori, DM annihilating in halos could also modify the reionization history of the Universe at late times…
Testing standard and nonstandard neutrino physics with cosmological data
2012
Cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses and on the effective number of neutrino species in standard and nonstandard scenarios are computed using the most recent available cosmological data. Our cosmological data sets include the measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the data release 9 CMASS sample of the baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey. We study in detail the different degeneracies among the parameters, as well as the impact of the different data sets used in the analyses. When considering bounds on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, the information in the BAO signal from galaxy clustering measurements is approximately equally pow…
Dark coupling
2009
30 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables.-- Pre-print archive.
CMB spectral distortions in generic two-field models
2017
We investigate the CMB $\mu$ distortion in models where two uncorrelated sources contribute to primordial perturbations. We parameterise each source by an amplitude, tilt, running and running of the running. We perform a detailed analysis of the distribution signal as function of the model parameters, highlighting the differences compared to single-source models. As a specific example, we also investigate the mixed inflaton-curvaton scenario. We find that the $\mu$ distortion could efficiently break degeneracies of curvaton parameters especially when combined with future sensitivity of probing the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. For example, assuming bounds $\mu < 0.5 \times 10^{-8}$ and $r<0.0…
Testing theories of Gravity and Supergravity with inflation and observations of the cosmic microwave background
2016
Many extensions of Einstein's theory of gravity have been studied and proposed with various motivations like the quest for a quantum theory of gravity to extensions of anomalies in observations at the solar system, galactic and cosmological scales. These extensions include adding higher powers of Ricci curvature $R$, coupling the Ricci curvature with scalar fields and generalized functions of $R$. In addition when viewed from the perspective of Supergravity (SUGRA) many of these theories may originate from the same SUGRA theory interpreted in different frames. SUGRA therefore serves as a good framework for organizing and generalizing theories of gravity beyond General Relativity. All these …
Slow-roll corrections in multi-field inflation: a separate universes approach
2018
In view of cosmological parameters being measured to ever higher precision, theoretical predictions must also be computed to an equally high level of precision. In this work we investigate the impact on such predictions of relaxing some of the simplifying assumptions often used in these computations. In particular, we investigate the importance of slow-roll corrections in the computation of multi-field inflation observables, such as the amplitude of the scalar spectrum $P_\zeta$, its spectral tilt $n_s$, the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{NL}$. To this end we use the separate universes approach and $\delta N$ formalism, which allows us to consider slow-roll…
The dark side of curvature
2009
Geometrical tests such as the combination of the Hubble parameter H(z) and the angular diameter distance d(A)(z) can, in principle, break the degeneracy between the dark energy equation of state parameter w(z), and the spatial curvature Omega(k) in a direct, model-independent way. In practice, constraints on these quantities achievable from realistic experiments, such as those to be provided by Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) galaxy surveys in combination with CMB data, can resolve the cosmic confusion between the dark energy equation of state parameter and curvature only statistically and within a parameterized model for w(z). Combining measurements of both H(z) and d(A)(z) up to suffici…
Revising the Predictions of Inflation for the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies
2009
4 pages, 1 figure.-- PACS nrs.: 98.70.Vc; 11.10.Gh; 98.80.Cq.-- ArXiv pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0439
Massive neutrinos and cosmology
2006
The present experimental results on neutrino flavour oscillations provide evidence for non-zero neutrino masses, but give no hint on their absolute mass scale, which is the target of beta decay and neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. Crucial complementary information on neutrino masses can be obtained from the analysis of data on cosmological observables, such as the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background or the distribution of large-scale structure. In this review we describe in detail how free-streaming massive neutrinos affect the evolution of cosmological perturbations. We summarize the current bounds on the sum of neutrino masses that can be derived from various combin…