Fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background Acknowledgments

In this thesis we investigate several aspects related to the theory of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background. We develop a new algorithm to calculate the angular power spectrum of the anisotropies which is two orders of magnitude faster than the standard Boltzmann hierarchy approach (Chapter 3). The new algorithm will become essential when comparing the observational results of the next generation of CMB experiments with theoretical predictions. The parameter space of the models is so large that an exhaustive exploration to find the best fit model will only be feasible with this new type of algorithm. We also investigate the polarization properties of the CMB field. We develop a new formalism to describe the statistics of the polarization variables that takes into account their spin two nature (Chapter 2). In Chapter 4 we explore several physical effects that create distinct features in the polarization power spectrum. We study the signature of the reionization of the universe and a stochastic background of gravitational waves. We also describe how the polarization correlation functions can be used to test the causal structure of the universe. Finally in Chapter 5 we quantify the amount of information the next generation of satellites can obtain by measuring both temperature and polarization anisotropies. We calculate the expected error bars on the cosmological parameters for the specifications of the MAP and Planck satellite missions. Thesis Supervisor: Edmund Bertschinger Title: Professor Co-Supervisor: Uroš Seljak Title: Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Fellow