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The current cosmological model requires new physics beyond the standard model of elementary particles and fields, such as dark matter and dark energy. Their nature is unknown and so is that of the initial fluctuations in the early Universe that led to the creation of the cosmic structure we see today. Polarized light of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) may hold the answer to these fundamental questions. Here, I discuss two phenomena that could be uncovered in CMB observations. First, if the physics behind dark matter and dark energy violates parity symmetry, their coupling to photons should have rotated the plane of linear polarization as the CMB photons have been travelling for more than 13 billion years. This effect is known as ‘cosmic birefringence’. A tantalizing hint of such a signal has been found with a statistical significance of 3σ. Second, the period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe, called ‘cosmic inflation’, might have produced a stochastic background of primordial gravitational waves (as yet unobserved). These might have been generated by vacuum fluctuations in spacetime or by matter fields and could be measurable in the CMB polarization. The goal of observing these two phenomena will influence how data from future CMB experiments are collected, calibrated and analysed.The polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) may shed light on the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and on the origin of all structures in the Universe. Discovering a signature of such new physics in the CMB will require new observational and calibration strategies for future CMB experiments.

Abstract We develop a strategy to determine the cosmic birefringence and miscalibrated polarization angles simultaneously using the observed $EB$ polarization power spectra of the cosmic microwave background and the Galactic foreground emission. We extend the methodology of Y. Minami et al. (Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2019, 083E02, 2019), which was developed for auto-frequency power spectra, by including cross-frequency spectra. By fitting one global birefringence angle and independent miscalibration angles at different frequency bands, we determine both angles with significantly smaller uncertainties (by more than a factor of two) compared to the auto spectra.

Abstract We show that the cosmic birefringence and miscalibrated polarization angles can be determined simultaneously by cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments using the cross-correlation between $E$- and $B$-mode polarization data. This is possible because the polarization angles of the CMB are rotated by both the cosmic birefringence and miscalibration effects, whereas those of the Galactic foreground emission are rotated only by the latter. Our method does not require prior knowledge of the $E$- and $B$-mode power spectra of the foreground emission, but uses only the knowledge of the CMB polarization spectra. Specifically, we relate the observed $EB$ correlation to the difference between the observed$E$- and $B$-mode spectra in the sky, and use different multipole dependences of the CMB (given by theory) and foreground spectra (given by data) to derive the likelihood for the miscalibration angle $\\alpha$ and the birefringence angle $\\beta$. We show that a future satellite mission similar to LiteBIRD can determine $\\beta$ with a precision of 10 arcmin.

The local expansion rate of the Universe is parametrized by the Hubble constant, H0, the ratio between recession velocity and distance. Different techniques lead to inconsistent estimates of H0. Observations of Type Ia supernovae (SNe) can be used to measure H0, but this requires an external calibrator to convert relative distances to absolute ones. We use the angular diameter distance to strong gravitational lenses as a suitable calibrator, which is only weakly sensitive to cosmological assumptions. We determine the angular diameter distances to two gravitational lenses, 810 - 130 + 160 and 1230 - 150 + 180 megaparsec, at redshifts z = 0.295 and 0.6304. Using these absolute distances to calibrate 740 previously measured relative distances to SNe, we measure the Hubble constant to be H 0 = 82 . 4 - 8 . 3 + 8 . 4 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

Abstract We extend the internal template foreground removal method by accounting for spatially varying spectral parameters such as the spectral indices of synchrotron and dust emission and the dust temperature. As the previous algorithm had to assume that the spectral parameters are uniform over the full sky (or some significant fraction of the sky), it resulted in a bias in the tensor-to-scalar ratio parameter $r$ estimated from foreground-cleaned polarization maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The new algorithm, the “Delta-map method”, accounts for spatially varying spectra to first order in perturbation. The only free parameters are the cosmological parameters such as $r$ and the sky-averaged foreground parameters. We show that a cleaned CMB map is the maximum likelihood solution to first order in perturbation, and derive the posterior distribution of $r$ and the sky-averaged foreground parameters using Bayesian statistics. Applying this to realistic simulated sky maps including polarized CMB, synchrotron, and thermal dust emission, we find that the new algorithm removes the bias in $r$ down to an undetected level in our noiseless simulation ($r\\lesssim 4\\times 10^{-4}$). We show that the frequency decorrelation of polarized foregrounds due to averaging of spatially varying spectra can be accounted for to first order in perturbation by using slightly different spectral parameters for the Stokes $Q$ and $U$ maps. Finally, we show that the effect of polarized anomalous microwave emission on foreground removal can be absorbed into the curvature parameter of the synchrotron spectrum.

Cosmology requires new physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles and fields. What is the fundamental physics behind dark matter and dark energy? What generated the initial fluctuations in the early Universe? Polarised light of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) may hold the key to answers. In this article, we discuss two new developments in this research area. First, if the physics behind dark matter and dark energy violates parity symmetry, their coupling to photons rotates the plane of linear polarisation as the CMB photons travel more than 13 billion years. This effect is known as `cosmic birefringence': space filled with dark matter and dark energy behaves as if it were a birefringent material, like a crystal. A tantalising hint for such a signal has been found with the statistical significance of \\(3\\sigma\\). Next, the period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe, called `cosmic inflation', produced a stochastic background of primordial gravitational waves (GW). What generated GW? The leading idea is vacuum fluctuations in spacetime, but matter fields could also produce a significant amplitude of primordial GW. Finding its origin using CMB polarisation opens a new window into the physics behind inflation. These new scientific targets may influence how data from future CMB experiments are collected, calibrated, and analysed.

Abstract We derive a “Kompaneets equation” for neutrinos, which describes how the distribution function of neutrinos interacting with matter deviates from a Fermi–Dirac distribution with zero chemical potential. To this end, we expand the collision integral in the Boltzmann equation of neutrinos up to the second order in energy transfer between matter and neutrinos. The distortion of the neutrino distribution function changes the rate at which neutrinos heat matter, as the rate is proportional to the mean square energy of neutrinos, $E_\\nu^2$. For electron-type neutrinos the enhancement in $E_\\nu^2$ over its thermal value is given approximately by $E_\\nu^2/E_{\\nu,\\rm thermal}^2=1+0.086(V/0.1)^2$, where $V$ is the bulk velocity of nucleons, while for the other neutrino species the enhancement is $(1+\\delta_v)^3$, where $\\delta_v=mV^2/3k_{\\rm B}T$ is the kinetic energy of nucleons divided by the thermal energy. This enhancement has a significant implication for supernova explosions, as it would aid neutrino-driven explosions.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) mapped the distribution of temperature and polarization over the entire sky in five microwave frequency bands. These full-sky maps were used to obtain measurements of temperature and polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented accuracy and precision. The analysis of two-point correlation functions of temperature and polarization data gives determinations of the fundamental cosmological parameters such as the age and composition of the universe, as well as the key parameters describing the physics of inflation, which is further constrained by three-point correlation functions. WMAP observations alone reduced the flat $\\Lambda $ cold dark matter ($\\Lambda $CDM) cosmological model (six) parameter volume by a factor of $>$68,000 compared with pre-WMAP measurements. The WMAP observations (sometimes in combination with other astrophysical probes) convincingly show the existence of non-baryonic dark matter, the cosmic neutrino background, the flatness of the spatial geometry of the universe, a deviation from a scale-invariant spectrum of initial scalar fluctuations, and that the current universe is undergoing an accelerated expansion. The WMAP observations provide the strongest ever support for inflation; namely, the structures we see in the universe originate from quantum fluctuations generated during inflation.

The Magneticum Pathfinder (www.magneticum.org) cosmological, hydro-dynamical simulation (896h -1 Mpc)3 follows in detail the thermal and chemical evolution of the ICM as well as the evolution of SMBHs and their associated feedback processes. We demonstrate that assuming cosmological parameters inferred from the CMB, the thermal SZ power spectrum as observed by PLANCK is well matched by the deep light-cones constructed from these cosmological simulations. The thermal SZ prediction from the full SZ maps are significantly exceeding previous templates at large l (e.g., l > 1000) and therefore predict a significantly larger contribution to the signal at l = 3000 compared to previous findings. The excess of positive values within the probability distribution of the thermal SZ signal within the simulated light-cone agrees with the one seen by PLANCK. This excess signal follows a power law shape with an index of roughly -3.2. The bulk of the thermal SZ signal originates from clusters and groups which form between z = 0 and z ≈ 2 where at high redshift (z > 1) significant part of the signal originates from proto-cluster regions, which are not yet virialized. The simulation predicts a mean fluctuating Compton Y value of 1.18 × 10-6 , with a remaining contribution of almost 5 ×10-7 when removing contribution from halos above a virial mass of 1013 M⊙/h.