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- arXiv:0803.0593 [ps, pdf, other]
- Title: Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Angular Power Spectra
- Authors: M. R. Nolta, J. Dunkley, R. S. Hill, G. Hinshaw, E. Komatsu, D. Larson, L. Page, D. N. Spergel, C. L. Bennett, B. Gold, N. Jarosik, N. Odegard, J. L. Weiland, E. Wollack, M. Halpern, A. Kogut, M. Limon, S. S. Meyer, G. S. Tucker, E. L. Wright
We present the temperature and polarization angular power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) derived from the first 5 years of WMAP data. The 5-year temperature (TT) spectrum is cosmic variance limited up to multipole l=530, and individual l-modes have S/N>1 for l<920. The best fitting six-parameter LambdaCDM model has a reduced chi^2 for l=33-1000 of chi^2/nu=1.06, with a probability to exceed of 9.3%. There is now significantly improved data near the third peak which leads to improved cosmological constraints. The temperature-polarization correlation (TE) is seen with high significance. After accounting for foreground emission, the low-l reionization feature in the EE power spectrum is preferred by \Delta\chi^2=19.6 for optical depth tau=0.089 by the EE data alone, and is now largely cosmic variance limited for l=2-6. There is no evidence for cosmic signal in the BB, TB, or EB spectra after accounting for foreground emission. We find that, when averaged over l=2-6, l(l+1)C^{BB}_l/2\pi < 0.15 uK^2 (95% CL) |
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- arXiv:0803.0586 [ps, pdf, other]
- Title: Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP data
- Authors: J. Dunkley, E. Komatsu, M. R. Nolta, D. N. Spergel, D. Larson, G. Hinshaw, L. Page, C. L. Bennett, B. Gold, N. Jarosik, J. L. Weiland, M. Halpern, R. S. Hill, A. Kogut, M. Limon, S. S. Meyer, G. S. Tucker, E. Wollack, E. L. Wright
- This paper focuses on cosmological constraints derived from analysis of WMAP data alone. A simple LCDM cosmological model fits the five-year WMAP temperature and polarization data. The basic parameters of the model are consistent with the three-year data and now better constrained: Omega_b h^2 = 0.02273+-0.00062, Omega_c h^2 = 0.1099+-0.0062, Omega_L = 0.742+-0.030, n_s = 0.963+0.014- 0.015, tau = 0.087+-0.017, sigma_8 = 0.796+-0.036. With five years of polarization data, we have measured the optical depth to reionization, tau>0, at 5 sigma significance. The redshift of an instantaneous reionization is constrained to be z_reion = 11.0+-1.4 with 68% confidence. This excludes a sudden reionization of the universe at z=6 at more than 3.5 sigma significance, suggesting that reionization was an extended process. Using two different methods for polarized foreground cleaning, and foreground marginalization, we get consistent estimates for the optical depth. This cosmological model also fits small-scale CMB data, and a range of astronomical data measuring the expansion rate and clustering of matter in the universe. We find evidence for the first time in the CMB power spectrum for a non-zero cosmic neutrino background, or a background of relativistic species, with the standard three light neutrino species preferred over the best-fit LCDM model with N_eff=0 at >99.5% confidence, and N_eff > 2.3 (95% CL) when varied. The five-year WMAP data improve the upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio to r < 0.43 (95% CL), for power-law models. With longer integration we find no evidence for a running spectral index, with dn_s/dlnk = -0.037+-0.028.
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- arXiv:0803.0547 [ps, pdf, other]
- Title: Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
- Authors: E. Komatsu, J. Dunkley, M. R. Nolta, C. L. Bennett, B. Gold, G. Hinshaw, N. Jarosik, D. Larson, M. Limon, L. Page, D. N. Spergel, M. Halpern, R. S. Hill, A. Kogut, S. S. Meyer, G. S. Tucker, J. L. Weiland, E. Wollack, E. L. Wright
- (Abridged) The WMAP 5-year data strongly limit deviations from the minimal LCDM model. We constrain the physics of inflation via Gaussianity, adiabaticity, the power spectrum shape, gravitational waves, and spatial curvature. We also constrain the properties of dark energy, parity-violation, and neutrinos. We detect no convincing deviations from the minimal model. The parameters of the LCDM model, derived from WMAP combined with the distance measurements from the Type Ia supernovae (SN) and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), are: Omega_b=0.0462+-0.0015, Omega_c=0.233+-0.013, Omega_Lambda=0.721+-0.015, H_0=70.1+-1.3 km/s/Mpc, n_s=0.960+0.014-0.013, tau=0.084+-0.016, and sigma_8=0.817+-0.026. With WMAP+BAO+SN, we find the tensor-to-scalar ratio r<0.20 (95% CL), and n_s>1 is disfavored regardless of r. We obtain tight, simultaneous limits on the (constant) equation of state of dark energy and curvature. We provide a set of "WMAP distance priors," to test a variety of dark energy models. We test a time-dependent w with a present value constrained as -0.38<1+w_0<0.14 (95% CL). Temperature and matter fluctuations obey the adiabatic relation to within 8.6% and 2.0% for the axion and curvaton-type dark matter, respectively. The TE and EB spectra constrain cosmic parity-violation. We find the limit on the total mass of neutrinos, sum(m_nu)<0.61 eV (95% CL), which is free from the uncertainty in the normalization of the large-scale structure data. The effective number of neutrino species is constrained as N_{eff} = 4.4+-1.5 (68%), consistent with the standard value of 3.04. Finally, limits on primordial non-Gaussianity are -9<f_{NL}^{local}<111 and -151<f_{NL}^{equil}<253 (95% CL) for the local and equilateral models, respectively.
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arXiv:0802.3245 [ps, pdf, other]:
Title: Optimal angular window for observing Dark Matter annihilation from the Galactic Center region: the case of gamma-ray lines
Although the emission of radiation from dark matter annihilation is expected to be maximized at the Galactic Center, geometric factors and the presence of point-like and diffuse backgrounds make the choice of the angular window size to optimize the chance of a signal detection a non-trivial problem. Contrarily to what is often assumed, we find that the best strategy is to focus on a window size around the Galactic Center of ~ 1 deg to >~ 30 deg, where the optimal size depends on the angular distribution of the signal and the backgrounds. Although our conclusions are general, we illustrate this point in the particular case of annihilation into two monochromatic photons in the phenomenologically most interesting range of energy 45 GeV < E < 80 GeV, which is of great interest for the GLAST satellite. We find for example that Dark Matter models with sufficiently strong line annihilation signals, like the Inert Doublet Model, may be detectable without or with very moderate boost factors.
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Authors: Ilias Cholis, Lisa Goodenough, Neal Weiner (CCPP, NYU)
We consider the signals of positrons and electrons from ``exciting'' dark matter (XDM) annihilation. Because of the light (m_phi < 1 GeV) force carrier phi into which the dark matter states can annihilate, the electrons and positrons are generally very boosted, yielding a hard spectrum, in addition to the low energy positrons needed for INTEGRAL observations of the galactic center. We consider the relevance of this scenario for HEAT, PAMELA and the WMAP ``haze,'' focusing on light (m_phi < 2 m_pi) phi bosons, and find that significant signals can be found for all three, without resorting to significant ``boost'' factors arising from clumpiness of the halo. We find that measurements of the positron fraction are generally insensitive to the halo model, but do suffer significant astrophysical uncertainties. We discuss the implications for upcoming PAMELA results. |
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arXiv:0803.0663 [ps, pdf, other]
Title: The Cosmological Constant Problem and Inflation in the String Landscape
Authors: Qing-Guo Huang, S.-H. Henry Tye
An earlier paper points out that a quantum treatment of the string landscape is necessary. It suggests that the wavefunction of the universe is mobile in the landscape until the universe reaches a meta-stable site with its cosmological constant $\Lambda_0$ smaller than the critical value $\Lambda_c$, where $\Lambda_c$ is estimated to be exponentally small compared to the Planck scale. Since this site has an exponentially long lifetime, it may well be today's universe. We investigate specific scenarios based on this quantum diffusion property of the cosmic landscape and find a plausible scenario for the early universe. In the last fast tunneling to the $\Lambda_0$ ($<\Lambda_c$) site in this scenario, all energies are stored in the nucleation bubble walls, which are released to radiation only after bubble collisions and thermalization. So the $\Lambda_0$ site is chosen even if $\Lambda_0$ plus radiation is larger than $\Lambda_c$, as long as the radiation does not destabilize the $\Lambda_0$ vacuum. A consequence is that inflation must happen before this last fast tunneling, so the inflationary scenario that emerges naturally is extended brane inflation, where the brane motion includes a combination of rolling, fast tunnelings, slow-roll, hopping and percolation in the landscape. We point out that, in the brane world, radiation during nucleosynthesis are mostly on the standard model branes (brane radiation, as opposed to radiation in the bulk). This distinction may lead to interesting dynamics.
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