University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Probing the Cosmological Initial Conditions Using the CMB

Yadav, Amit P.S.

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Description

Title
Probing the Cosmological Initial Conditions Using the CMB
Author(s)
Yadav, Amit P.S.
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Benjamin Wandelt
Department of Study
Astronomy
Discipline
Astronomy
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics
Language
eng
Abstract
Finally, using our estimator we found (Yadav and Wandelt 2008) evidence for primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type (fNL) in the temperature anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Analyzing the bispectrum of the WMAP 3-year data up to lmax=750 we find 27< fNL<147 (95% CL). This amounts to a rejection of fNL=0 at 2.8sigma, disfavoring canonical single field slow-roll inflation. The signal is robust to variations in lmax , frequency, and masks. No known foreground, instrument systematic, or secondary anisotropy explains it. We explore the impact of several analysis choices on the quoted significance and find 2.5sigma to be conservative.
Graduation Semester
2008
Type of Resource
text
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/85189

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