UCSD Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Discussion Group

Summer 2000


We will meet for approximately 1.5 hours each Wednesday, starting with a brief recap of the previous week, continuing with roughly an hour of presentation and discussion of the week's topic, and ending with a brief listing of questions that the next week's presenters should plan to answer. Speakers should prepare no more than 30-45 minutes of material to allow time for discussions of concepts and derivations. All participants are expected to present or co-present a topic.

Suggested reading for each week is listed below (The Astrophysical Journal is abbreviated as ApJ and Physical Review Letters/D as PRL/D). If the presenter finds a particular source or two that (s)he wants people to read before our meeting, (s)he should email me and I will list those as "Required" reading. Especially where multiple textbooks are listed, there may be duplication among these readings, so choose the author(s) you like best. If you miss a session, the Suggested readings would be a great way to catch up. A PDF version of Wayne Hu's thesis with figures that can be downloaded chapter-by-chapter or in its entirety is located here.

Next meeting: Wednesday, 9/13, 2PM, 329 SERF. Note below the "Almost Required" assignment for the 8/30 meeting.

Questions or comments? Contact Eric Gawiser


Outline of topics and presenters:

  • Thermalization and spectral distortions (Geza Gyuk, 6/21)
  • Origin of primordial density fluctuations (Aneesh Manohar, 7/10 - note special Monday meeting, 2PM)
  • Development of primordial density fluctuations (Bob Sanders, 7/12, 2PM)
  • Large-angle anisotropies: Sachs-Wolfe and Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (Art Wolfe, 7/19)
  • Acoustic oscillations (Kev Abazajian, 7/26)
  • How peaks determine geometry and expansion history (Witold Skiba, 7/28 - note special Friday meeting, 2PM)
  • Statistical analysis of CMB anisotropy data (Eric Gawiser, 8/2)
  • Damping of small-scale anisotropies and reionization (George Fuller, 8/9)
  • Secondary anisotropies: Rees-Sciama, Ostriker-Vishniac, gravitational lensing, patchy reionization (Neal Dalal, 8/16)
  • Observations of anisotropy and their interpretation (John O'Meara, 8/30)
  • Polarization: predictions and prospects for measurement (Ben Grinstein, 9/6)
  • Galactic and extragalactic microwave foregrounds including the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (Eric Gawiser, 9/13)
  • Connection to large-scale structure and the Lyman alpha forest power spectrum (Nao Suzuki, 9/20)


    Suggested reading for thermalization and spectral distortions (6/21):
  • Wayne Hu's Ph.D. thesis, Chapter 3, astro-ph/9508126
  • CMB review article: Gawiser & Silk, astro-ph/0002044
  • FIRAS constraints on spectral distortions: Fixsen et al., astro-ph/9605054
  • Far-Infrared Background radiation: Fixsen et al., astro-ph/9803021


    Suggested reading for origin of density fluctuations (7/10):
  • Hu's thesis, Chapters 2,4
  • Bardeen, PRD 22, 1882-1905, 1980
  • CMB review article: Kamionkowski & Kosowsky, astro-ph/9904108
  • Inflation review article: Liddle, astro-ph/9901124
  • Kolb & Turner, The Early Universe, Ch. 8
  • Padmanabhan, Structure Formation in the Universe, Ch. 10


    Suggested reading for development of density fluctuations (7/12):
  • Hu's thesis, Ch. 5
  • Kolb & Turner, Ch. 9
  • Padmanabhan, Ch. 4
  • Peebles, The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe, Sections 6-13, 16


    Suggested reading for large-angle anisotropies (7/19):
  • Original paper: Sachs & Wolfe, Astrophysical Journal, 147, 73, 1967
  • Nice derivation: White & Hu, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 321, 8, 1997 astro-ph/9609105
  • Hu's thesis, Ch. 6.1,6.2
  • Padmanabhan, Ch. 6.1-6.6


    Suggested reading for acoustic oscillations (7/26):
  • Hu's thesis, Ch. 6.3
  • Hu, Sugiyama, & Silk, Nature 386, 37, 1997, astro-ph/9604166
  • Hu & Sugiyama, Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) 444, 489, 1995, astro-ph/9407093
  • CMB review article: Kamionkowski & Kosowsky, astro-ph/9904108
  • Hu & White, ApJ 471, 30, 1996, astro-ph/9602019
  • Phase coherence: Albrecht, astro-ph/9612015


    Suggested reading for how peaks determine geometry and expansion history (7/28):
  • CMB review article: Kamionkowski & Kosowsky, astro-ph/9904108
  • 1st peak: Kamionkowski et al., ApJ 426, L57, 1994, astro-ph/9401003
  • 2nd peak: Kamionkowski & Buchalter, astro-ph/0001045
  • Peak ratios: Hu & White, PRL 77, 1687, 1996, astro-ph/9602020
  • 1st peak: Weinberg, astro-ph/0006276
  • 1st peak: Cornish, astro-ph/0005261


    Suggested reading for statistical analysis of CMB anisotropy data (8/2):
  • The following Lecture Notes will be handed out - read them here if you missed the talk.
  • If you are not familiar with statistics, the following Review Article is Strongly Recommended. The content is quite similar to that of the talk.
  • For a textbook introduction, see Lupton, "Statistics in Theory and Practice", Ch. 2 (characteristic functions), Ch. 3 (Multivariate Gaussian distributions), Ch. 4 (Chi^2 distributions), Ch. 7 (Bayes' theorem), and Ch. 8 (confidence intervals). These concepts will be covered in any decent statistics text.


    Suggested reading for damping of small-scale anisotropies and reionization (8/9):
  • Hu's thesis, Ch. 7.1
  • Padmanabhan, Ch. 6.7
  • Original paper on photon diffusion: Silk, ApJ, 151, 459, 1968
  • Damping tail: Hu & White, ApJ 479, 568, 1997, astro-ph/9609079
  • Review article on reionization: Haiman & Knox, astro-ph/9902311


    Suggested reading for secondary anisotropies (8/16):
  • Hu's thesis, section 7.2,7.3
  • Quick overview: Refregier, astro-ph/9904235
  • Calculation of Ostriker-Vishniac, patchy reionization, and ISW: Hu & White, Astronomy and Astrophysics 315, 33, 1996, astro-ph/9507060
  • Ostriker-Vishniac - ApJ Letters, 306, 510, 1986
  • Rees-Sciama effect: Seljak, astro-ph/9506048
  • patchy reionization: Knox et al., PRL 81, 2004, 1998, astro-ph/9805012
  • gravitational lensing: Seljak, ApJ, 460, 549, 1996, astro-ph/9505109


    Suggested reading for CMB anisotropy observations and interpretation (8/30):
  • Almost Required assignment: go to the CMBFAST website and download the code by Seljak & Zaldarriaga. Clear instructions are given there for compilation and usage. Run the code for your favorite cosmological models. You can use this basic Supermongo script to plot the output. If you want to plot theory versus data, a table of all the CMB anisotropy observations and a SuperMongo script to compare them with CMBFAST output are available here.
  • Review article: Gawiser & Silk, astro-ph/0002044
  • BOOMERANG & MAXIMA: Jaffe et al., astro-ph/0007333, and references therein
  • Compilation and analysis of data up to 1999: Dodelson & Knox, PRL 84, 3523, 2000, astro-ph/9909454
  • COBE 4-year results: Bennett et al., ApJ Letters, 461, L1, 1996, astro-ph/9601067


    Suggested reading for polarization (9/6):
  • "A CMB Polarization Primer", Hu & White, New Astronomy 2, 323, 1997, astro-ph/9706147
  • Seljak & Zaldarriaga, PRL 78, 2054, 1997, astro-ph/9609169
  • Observational prospects: Staggs et al., astro-ph/9904062


    Suggested reading for microwave foregrounds including the S-Z effect (9/13):
  • Check out the WOMBAT website - look at pretty pictures of simulations and foreground predictions
  • Quick overview: Refregier, astro-ph/9904235
  • Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect: Padmanabhan, section 6.8
  • S-Z Review by Rephaeli: Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 33, 541, 1995
  • S-Z Review by Sunyaev & Zeldovich: Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 18, 537, 1980


    Suggested reading for connection to large-scale structure and the lyman alpha forest power spectrum (9/20):
  • Scott, Silk, and White, Science 268, 829, 1995, astro-ph/9505015
  • Gawiser & Silk, Science 280, 1405, 1998, astro-ph/9806197
  • Croft et al., ApJ 520, 1, 1999, astro-ph/9809401


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