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Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field in the early Universe, amplified by inflation, produce a primordial gravitational-wave background across a broad frequency band. We derive constraints on the spectrum of this gravitational radiation, and hence on theories of the early Universe, by combining experiments that cover 29 orders of magnitude in frequency. These include Planck observations of cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization power spectra and lensing, together with baryon acoustic oscillations and big bang nucleosynthesis measurements, as well as new pulsar timing array and ground-based interferometer limits. While individual experiments constrain the gravitational-wave energy density in specific frequency bands, the combination of experiments allows us to constrain cosmological parameters, including the inflationary spectral index nt and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r . Results from individual experiments include the most stringent nanohertz limit of the primordial background to date from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array, ΩGW(f)<2.3×10−10 . Observations of the cosmic microwave background alone limit the gravitational-wave spectral index at 95% confidence to nt≲5 for a tensor-to-scalar ratio of r=0.11 . However, the combination of all the above experiments limits nt<0.36 . Future Advanced LIGO observations are expected to further constrain nt<0.34 by 2020. When cosmic microwave background experiments detect a nonzero r , our results will imply even more stringent constraints on nt and, hence, theories of the early Universe.

Predicting the dynamics of many-body systems far from equilibrium is a challenging theoretical problem. A long-predicted phenomenon in hydrodynamic nonequilibrium systems is the occurrence of Sakharov oscillations, which manifest in the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background and the large-scale correlations of galaxies. Here, we report the observation of Sakharov oscillations in the density fluctuations of a quenched atomic superfluid through a systematic study in both space and time domains and with tunable interaction strengths. Our work suggests a different approach to the study of nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems and the exploration of their analogs in cosmology and astrophysics.

The standard model of cosmology is based on the existence of homogeneous surfaces as the background arena for structure formation. Homogeneity underpins both general relativistic and modified gravity models and is central to the way in which we interpret observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the galaxy distribution. However, homogeneity cannot be directly observed in the galaxy distribution or CMB, even with perfect observations, since we observe on the past light cone and not on spatial surfaces. We can directly observe and test for isotropy, but to link this to homogeneity we need to assume the Copernican principle (CP). First, we discuss the link between isotropic observations on the past light cone and isotropic space—time geometry: what observations do we need to be isotropic in order to deduce space—time isotropy? Second, we discuss what we can say with the Copernican assumption. The most powerful result is based on the CMB: the vanishing of the dipole, quadrupole and octupole of the CMB is sufficient to impose homogeneity. Real observations lead to near-isotropy on large scales—does this lead to near-homogeneity? There are important partial results, and we discuss why this remains a difficult open question. Thus, we are currently unable to prove homogeneity of the Universe on large scales, even with the CP. However, we can use observations of the cosmic microwave background, galaxies and clusters to test homogeneity itself.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected the γ-ray glow emanating from the giant radio lobes of the radio galaxy Centaurus A. The resolved γ-ray image shows the lobes clearly separated from the central active source. In contrast to all other active galaxies detected so far in high-energy γ-rays, the lobe flux constitutes a considerable portion (greater than one-half) of the total source emission. The γ-ray emission from the lobes is interpreted as inverse Compton-scattered relic radiation from the cosmic microwave background, with additional contribution at higher energies from the infrared-to-optical extragalactic background light.These measurements provide ã-ray constraints on the magnetic field and particle energy content in radio galaxy lobes, as well as a promising method to probe the cosmic relic photon fields.

We explore the possibility that both the suppression of the [Formula omitted] multipole moment of the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background temperature fluctuations and the possible dip for [Formula omitted]-30 can be explained as well as a possible new dip for [Formula omitted] as the result of the resonant creation of sequential excitations of a fermionic (or bosonic) closed superstring that couples to the inflaton field. We consider a D [Formula omitted]26 closed bosonic string with one toroidal compact dimension as an illustration of how string excitations might imprint themselves on the CMB. We analyze the existence of successive momentum states, winding states or oscillations on the string as the source of the three possible dips in the power spectrum. Although the evidence of these dips are of marginal statistical significance, this might constitute the first observational evidence of successive superstring excitations in Nature.

We investigate how the dark energy properties impact the constraints on the total neutrino mass in interacting dark energy (IDE) models. In this study, we focus on two typical interacting dynamical dark energy models, i.e., the interacting w cold dark matter (I w CDM) model and the interacting holographic dark energy (IHDE) model. To avoid the large-scale instability problem in IDE models, we apply the parameterized post-Friedmann approach to calculate the perturbation of dark energy. We employ the Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization data, combined with low-redshift measurements on baryon acoustic oscillation distance scales, type Ia supernovae, and the Hubble constant, to constrain the cosmological parameters. We find that the dark energy properties could influence the constraint limits on the total neutrino mass. Once dynamical dark energy is considered in the IDE models, the upper bounds of ∑ m v will be changed. By considering the values of χ 2 min , we find that in these IDE models the normal hierarchy case is slightly preferred over the inverted hierarchy case; for example, Δ χ 2 = 2.720 is given in the IHDE+∑ m v model. In addition, we also find that in the I w CDM+∑ m v model β = 0 is consistent with current observational data inside the 1 σ range, and in the IHDE+∑ m v model β > 0 is favored at more than 2 σ level.

Recent analysis of the WMAP and Planck data have shown the presence of a dip and a bump in the spectrum of primordial perturbations at the scales k = 0.002 Mpc - 1 and k = 0.0035 Mpc - 1 , respectively. We analyze for the first time the effects of a local feature in the inflaton potential to explain the observed deviations from scale invariance in the primordial spectrum. We perform a best-fit analysis of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation temperature and polarization data. The effects of the features can improve the agreement with observational data respect to the featureless model. The best-fit local feature affects the primordial curvature spectrum mainly in the region of the bump, leaving the spectrum unaffected on other scales.

We test the Higgs dilaton inflation model (HDM) using the latest cosmological datasets, including the cosmic microwave background temperature, polarization and lensing data from the Planck satellite (2015), the BICEP and Keck Array experiments, the type Ia supernovae from the JLA catalogue, the baryon acoustic oscillations from CMASS, LOWZ and 6dF, the weak lensing data from the CFHTLenS survey and the matter power spectrum measurements from the latest SDSS data release. We find that the values of all cosmological parameters allowed by the HDM are well within the Planck satellite (2015) constraints. In particular, we determine , , , and (at 95.5% c.l.). We also place new stringent constraints on the couplings of the HDM, ξχ<0.00328 and (at 95.5% c.l.). We find that the HDM is only slightly better than the w0waCDM model, with . Given that the HDM has two fewer parameters, we find Bayesian evidence favouring the HDM over the w0waCDM model. We also study the critical Higgs inflation model, taking into account the running of both the self-coupling λ(μ) and the non-minimal coupling to gravity ξ(μ). We find peaks in the curvature power spectrum at scales corresponding to the critical value μ that re-enter during the radiation era and collapse to form a broad distribution of clustered primordial black holes, which could constitute today the main component of dark matter. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Higgs cosmology'.

This paper presents a built-in calibration procedure of a 10-to-20 GHz polarimeter aimed at measuring the I, Q, U Stokes parameters of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. A full-band square waveguide double directional coupler, mounted in the antenna-feed system, is used to inject differently polarized reference waves. A brief description of the polarimetric microwave radiometer and the system calibration injector is also reported. A fully polarimetric calibration is also possible using the designed double directional coupler, although the presented calibration method in this paper is proposed to obtain three of the four Stokes parameters with the introduced microwave receiver, since V parameter is expected to be zero for the CMB radiation. Experimental results are presented for linearly polarized input waves in order to validate the built-in calibration system.

The Rényi function plays an important role in the analysis of multifractal random fields. For random fields on the sphere, there are three models in the literature where the Rényi function is known explicitly. The theoretical part of the article presents multifractal random fields on the sphere and develops specific models where the Rényi function can be computed explicitly. For all considered models explicit expressions of their multifractal spectrum are obtained. Properties of the models and dependencies of their characteristics on parameters are investigated. Then these results are applied to the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation data collected from the Planck mission. The main statistical model used to describe these data in the literature is isotropic Gaussian fields. We present numerical multifractality studies and methodology based on simulating random fields, computing the Rényi function and the multifractal spectrum for different scenarios and actual CMB data. The obtained results can also find numerous potential applications for other geoscience, environmental and directional data.