CMB power spectra from cosmic strings: Predictions for the Planck satellite and beyond

2010/05/15 by Neil Bevis, Mark Hindmarsh, M. Kunz +2 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #CMB cold spot #Cosmic background radiation #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmic string #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Extrapolation #Multipole expansion #Physics #Planck #Quantum mechanics #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Satellite #Spectral density #String (physics) #Theoretical physics #astro-ph.CO #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.82.065004

published as Phys.Rev.D82:065004,2010 · 18 pages, 16 figures

arxiv created 2010/05/15 · openalex publication_date 2010/09/03 · arxiv updated 2015/03/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present a significant improvement over our previous calculations of the cosmic string contribution to cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra, with particular focus on sub-WMAP angular scales. These smaller scales are relevant for the now-operational Planck satellite and additional suborbital CMB projects that have even finer resolutions. We employ larger Abelian Higgs string simulations than before and we additionally model and extrapolate the statistical measures from our simulations to smaller length scales. We then use an efficient means of including the extrapolations into our Einstein-Boltzmann calculations in order to yield accurate results over the multipole range 2\ensuremath≤\ensuremathℓ\ensuremath≤4000. Our results suggest that power-law behavior cuts in for \ensuremathℓ\ensuremath\gtrsim3000 in the case of the temperature power spectrum, which then allows cautious extrapolation to even smaller scales. We find that a string contribution to the temperature power spectrum making up 10% of power at \ensuremathℓ=10 would be larger than the Silk-damped primary adiabatic contribution for \ensuremathℓ\ensuremath\gtrsim3500. Astrophysical contributions such as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect also become important at these scales and will reduce the sensitivity to strings, but these are potentially distinguishable by their frequency-dependence.

Citations

• CMB polarization power spectra contributions from a network of cosmic strings
• WMAP constraints on inflationary models with global defects
• The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich angular power spectrum as a probe of cosmological parameters
• The Case against Scaling Defect Models of Cosmic Structure Formation
• Bounds on cosmic strings from WMAP and SDSS
• Cosmological evolution of cosmic string loops
• Three‐YearWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe(WMAP) Observations: Temperature Analysis
• Causality and the Doppler peaks
• Cosmic strings as the source of small-scale microwave background anisotropy
• Updated constraints on the cosmic string tension
• Final Results from theHubble Space TelescopeKey Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Semilocal and electroweak strings
• Three‐YearWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe(WMAP) Observations: Implications for Cosmology
• A Cosmic Microwave Background Feature Consistent with a Cosmic Texture

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• Scaling from gauge and scalar radiation in Abelian-Higgs string networks
• Irreducible background of gravitational waves from a cosmic defect network: Update and comparison of numerical techniques