arXiv subjects

Julian B. Muñoz

Publications and source records attributed to Julian B. Muñoz.

93 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Search for Compensated Isocurvature Perturbations with Planck Power Spectra

In the standard inflationary scenario, primordial perturbations are adiabatic. The amplitudes of most types of isocurvature perturbations are generally constrained by current data to be small. If, however, there is a baryon-density perturbation that is compensated by a dark-matter perturbation in such a way that the total matter density is unperturbed, then this compensated isocurvature perturbation (CIP) has no observable consequence in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at linear order in the CIP amplitude. Here we search for the effects of CIPs on CMB power spectra to quadratic order in the CIP amplitude. An analysis of the Planck temperature data leads to an upper bound $Δ_{\rm rms}^2 \leq 7.1\times 10^{-3}$, at the 68\% confidence level, to the variance $Δ_{\rm rms}^2$ of the CIP amplitude. This is then strengthened to $Δ_{\rm rms}^2\leq 5.0\times 10^{-3}$ if Planck small-angle polarization data are included. A cosmic-variance-limited CMB experiment could improve the $1σ$ sensitivity to CIPs to $Δ^2_{\rm rms} \lesssim 9\times 10^{-4}$. It is also found that adding CIPs to the standard $Λ$CDM model can improve the fit of the observed smoothing of CMB acoustic peaks just as much as adding a non-standard lensing amplitude.

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arXiv2015

Heating of Baryons due to Scattering with Dark Matter During the Dark Ages

We explore the effects of elastic scattering between dark matter and baryons on the 21-cm signal during the dark ages. In particular, we consider a dark-matter---baryon interaction with a cross section of the form $σ= σ_0 v^{-4}$, in which case the effect of the drag force between the dark matter and baryon fluids grows with time. We show that, as opposed to what was previously thought, this effect heats up the baryons due to the relative velocity between dark matter and baryons. This creates an additional source of fluctuations, which can potentially make interactions easier to detect by 21-cm measurements than by using the cosmic microwave background and the Lyman-$α$ forest. Our forecasts show that the magnitude of the cross section can be probed to $σ_0\sim 3\times 10^{-42}$ cm$^2$ for $m_χ\ll 1$ GeV and $σ_0\sim 2 \times 10^{-41}\ (m_χ/10\, \rm GeV)$ cm$^2$ for $m_χ\gg 1$ GeV with next generation experiments, and improved to $σ_0\sim 4\times 10^{-44}$ cm$^2$ for $m_χ \ll 1$ GeV and $σ_0\sim 4 \times 10^{-43}\ (m_χ/10\, \rm GeV)$ cm$^2$ for $m_χ\gg 1$ GeV with futuristic experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Primordial non-gaussianity from the bispectrum of 21-cm fluctuations in the dark ages

A measurement of primordial non-gaussianity will be of paramount importance to distinguish between different models of inflation. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy observations have set unprecedented bounds on the non-gaussianity parameter f_NL but the interesting regime f_NL <~ 1 is beyond their reach. Brightness-temperature fluctuations in the 21-cm line during the dark ages (z ~ 30-100) are a promising successor to CMB studies, giving access to a much larger number of modes. They are, however, intrinsically non-linear, which results in secondary non-gaussianities orders of magnitude larger than the sought-after primordial signal. In this paper we carefully compute the primary and secondary bispectra of 21-cm fluctuations on small scales. We use the flat-sky formalism, which greatly simplifies the analysis, while still being very accurate on small angular scales. We show that the secondary bispectrum is highly degenerate with the primordial one, and argue that even percent-level uncertainties in the amplitude of the former lead to a bias of order Delta f_NL ~ 10. To tackle this problem we carry out a detailed Fisher analysis, marginalizing over the amplitudes of a few smooth redshift-dependent coefficients characterizing the secondary bispectrum. We find that the signal-to-noise ratio for a single redshift slice is reduced by a factor of ~5 in comparison to a case without secondary non-gaussianities. Setting aside foreground contamination, we forecast that a cosmic-variance-limited experiment observing 21-cm fluctuations over 30 < z < 100 with a 0.1-MHz bandwidth and 0.1-arcminute angular resolution could achieve a sensitivity of order f_NL[local] ~ 0.03, f_NL[equilateral] ~ 0.04, and f_NL[orthogonal] ~ 0.03.

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