arXiv subjects

Alejandro Gangui

Publications and source records attributed to Alejandro Gangui.

95 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv1995

Doppler Peaks in the Angular Power Spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background: A Fingerprint of Topological Defects

The Doppler peaks (Sacharov peaks) in the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies, are mainly due to coherent oscillations in the baryon radiation plasma before recombination. Here we present a calculation of the Doppler peaks for perturbations induced by global textures and cold dark matter. We find that the height of the first Doppler peak is smaller than in standard cold dark matter models, and that its position is shifted to $\ell\sim 350$. We believe that our analysis can be easily extended to other types of global topological defects and general global scalar fields.

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arXiv1995

Contribution to the Three--Point Function of the Cosmic Microwave Background from the Rees--Sciama Effect

We compute the contribution to the three--point temperature correlation function of the Cosmic Microwave Background coming from the non--linear evolution of Gaussian initial perturbations, as described by the Rees--Sciama (or integrated Sachs--Wolfe) effect. By expressing the collapsed three--point function in terms of multipole amplitudes, we are able to calculate its expectation value for any power spectrum and for any experimental setting on large angular scales. We also give an analytical expression for the {\it rms} collapsed three--point function arising from the cosmic variance of a Gaussian fluctuation field. In the case of {\it COBE} DMR, we find that the predicted signal is about three orders of magnitude below that expected from the cosmic variance.

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arXiv1994

Primordial Non-Gaussian Signatures in the Sky

The presence of non-Gaussian features in the CMB radiation maps represents one of the most long-awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation. These features could shed some light on the non trivial task of distinguishing the real source of the primeval perturbations leading to large scale structure. In the present paper we briefly review recent work towards finding analytical estimates of the three- and four-point correlation functions and of their zero-lag limits, namely, the skewness and kurtosis, respectively. - Contributed talk to appear in the proceedings of "Birth of the Universe & Fundamental Physics", May 18-21, 1994, Rome, Italy.

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arXiv1994

Cosmic Strings and Cosmic Variance

By using a simple analytical model based on counting random multiple impulses inflicted on photons by a network of cosmic strings we show how to construct the general q-point temperature correlation function of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. Our analysis is sensible specially for large angular scales where the Kaiser-Stebbins effect is dominant. Then we concentrate our study on the four-point function and in particular on its zero-lag limit, namely, the excess kurtosis parameter, for which we obtain a predicted value of $\sim 10^{-2}$. In addition, we estimate the cosmic variance for the kurtosis due to a Gaussian fluctuation field, showing its dependence on the primordial spectral index of density fluctuations $n$ and finding agreement with previous published results for the particular case of a flat Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum. Our value for the kurtosis compares well with previous analyses but falls below the threshold imposed by the cosmic variance when commonly accepted parameters from string simulations are considered. In particular the non-Gaussian signal is found to be inversely proportional to the scaling number of defects, as could be expected by the central limit theorem.

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arXiv1994

Non--Gaussian Effects in the Cosmic Microwave Background from Inflation

The presence of non--Gaussian features in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps represents one of the most long--awaited clues in the search for the actual structure of the primordial radiation, still needing confirmation. These features could shed some light on the non trivial task of distinguishing the real source of the primeval perturbations leading to large scale structure. One of the simplest non--Gaussian signals to search is the (dimensionless) skewness ${\cal S}$. Explicit computations for ${\cal S}$ are presented in the frame of physically motivated inflationary models (natural, intermediate and polynomial potential inflation) in the hope of finding values in agreement with estimated quantities from large angle scale (e.g., {\em COBE} DMR) maps. In all the cases considered the non--Gaussian effects turn out to lie below the level of theoretical uncertainty (cosmic variance). The possibility of unveiling the signal for ${\cal S}$ with multiple--field models is also discussed.

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