2006/10/31 by Nicola Bartolo, Sabino Matarrese, Antonio Riotto · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2007/01/019
published as JCAP 0701:019,2007 · 38 pages, LaTeX file; typos corrected, discussion improved in Sec. IIIA and VII, matching the version published in JCAP
arxiv created 2007/01/30 · arxiv updated 2010/10/27
We provide an analytical approach to the second-order Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies generated by the non-linear dynamics taking place at last scattering. We study the acoustic oscillations of the photon-baryon fluid in the tight coupling limit and we extend at second-order the Meszaros effect. We allow for a generic set of initial conditions due to primordial non-Gaussianity and we compute all the additional contributions arising at recombination. Our results are useful to provide the full second-order radiation transfer function at all scales necessary for establishing the level of non-Gaussianity in the CMB.