H. Kurki-Suonio

Deflagrations and detonations as a mechanism of hadron bubble growth in supercooled quark-gluon plasmas

Abstract We discuss the possibility that hadron bubbles formed in quark-gluon plasmas below or slightly above the critical temperature start growing by explosive deflagration or detonation processes. In these the phase transition takes place in a thin layer of discontinuity propagating outward from the point of bubble formation. Combustion theory is written in relativistic form, and possible physical deflagration and detonation bubble solutions conserving energy and momentum, producing entropy, and satisfying correct boundary conditions are classified and numerically discussed using the bag equation of state for quark matter. The implications of these solutions to ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions and early cosmology are discussed.

Planck Pre-Launch Status: Expected LFI Polarisation Capability

We present a system-level description of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) considered as a differencing polarimeter, and evaluate its expected performance. The LFI is one of the two instruments on board the ESA Planck mission to study the cosmic microwave background. It consists of a set of 22 radiometers sensitive to linear polarisation, arranged in orthogonally-oriented pairs connected to 11 feed horns operating at 30, 44 and 70 GHz. In our analysis, the generic Jones and Mueller-matrix formulations for polarimetry are adapted to the special case of the LFI. Laboratory measurements of flight components are combined with optical simulations of the telescope to investigate the values and uncertainties in the system parameters affecting polarisation response. Methods of correcting residual systematic errors are also briefly discussed. The LFI has beam-integrated polarisation efficiency >99% for all detectors, with uncertainties below 0.1%. Indirect assessment of polarisation position angles suggests that uncertainties are generally less than 0°.5, and this will be checked in flight using observations of the Crab nebula. Leakage of total intensity into the polarisation signal is generally well below the thermal noise level except for bright Galactic emission, where the dominant effect is likely to be spectral-dependent terms due to bandpass mismatch between the two detectors behind each feed, contributing typically 1–3% leakage of foreground total intensity. Comparable leakage from compact features occurs due to beam mismatch, but this averages to < 5 × 10^(-4) for large-scale emission. An inevitable feature of the LFI design is that the two components of the linear polarisation are recovered from elliptical beams which differ substantially in orientation. This distorts the recovered polarisation and its angular power spectrum, and several methods are being developed to correct the effect, both in the power spectrum and in the sky maps. The LFI will return a high-quality measurement of the CMB polarisation, limited mainly by thermal noise. To meet our aspiration of measuring polarisation at the 1% level, further analysis of flight and ground data is required. We are still researching the most effective techniques for correcting subtle artefacts in polarisation; in particular the correction of bandpass mismatch effects is a formidable challenge, as it requires multi-band analysis to estimate the spectral indices that control the leakage.

Cosmological perturbations in the Palatini formulation of modified gravity

Cosmology in extended theories of gravity is considered assuming the Palatini variational principle, for which the metric and connection are independent variables. The field equations are derived to linear order in perturbations about the homogeneous and isotropic but possibly spatially curved background. The results are presented in a unified form applicable to a broad class of gravity theories allowing arbitrary scalar–tensor couplings and nonlinear dependence on the Ricci scalar in the gravitational action. The gauge-ready formalism exploited here makes it possible to obtain the equations immediately in any of the commonly used gauges. Of the three type of perturbations, the main attention is on the scalar modes responsible for the cosmic large-scale structure. Evolution equations are derived for perturbations in a late universe filled with cold dark matter and accelerated by curvature corrections. Such corrections are found to induce effective pressure gradients which are problematical in the formation of large-scale structure. This is demonstrated by analytic solutions in a particular case. A physical equivalence between scalar–tensor theories in metric and in Palatini formalisms is pointed out.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the Quark - Hadron Transition

An examination and brief review is made of the effects of quark-hadron transition induced fluctuations on Big Bang nucleosynthesis. It is shown that cosmologically critical densities in baryons are difficult to reconcile with observation, but the traditional baryon density constraints from homogeneous calculations might be loosened by as much as 50 percent, to 0.3 of critical density, and the limit on the number of neutrino flavors remains about N(sub nu) is less than or approximately 4. To achieve baryon densities of greater than or approximately 0.3 of critical density would require initial density contrasts R is much greater the 10(exp e), whereas the simplest models for the transition seem to restrict R to less than of approximately 10(exp 2). 43 refs.

Making Sky Maps from Planck Data

Aims. We compare the performance of multiple codes written by different groups for making polarized maps from Planck-sized, all-sky cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. Three of the codes are based on a destriping algorithm; the other three are implementations of an optimal maximum-likelihood algorithm. Methods. Time-ordered data (TOD) were simulated using the Planck Level-S simulation pipeline. Several cases of temperature-only data were run to test that the codes could handle large datasets, and to explore effects such as the precision of the pointing data. Based on these preliminary results, TOD were generated for a set of four 217 GHz detectors (the minimum number required to produce I, Q, and U maps) under two different scanning strategies, with and without noise. Results. Following correction of various problems revealed by the early simulation, all codes were able to handle the large data volume that Planck will produce. Differences in maps produced are small but noticeable; differences in computing resources are large.

Deflagration Bubbles in the Quark - Hadron Phase Transition

If bubbles of hadronic matter are nucleated in supercooled quark-gluon plasma, they may grow by deflagration, or slow combustion. These deflagration bubbles are possible for any amount of supercooling and therefore they may play a part in the cosmological quark-hadron phase transition. We discuss similarity solutions for relativistic fluid flow and deflagration fronts in order to understand the structure of relativistic deflagration bubbles. We use the bag equation of state for QCD matter to obtain quantitative results for 1-, 2- and 3-dimensional deflagration bubbles.

Madam– a map-making method for CMB experiments

We present a new map-making method for cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements. The method is based on the destriping technique, but it also utilizes information about the noise spectrum. The low-frequency component of the instrument noise stream is modelled as a superposition of a set of simple base functions, whose amplitudes are determined by means of maximum-likelihood analysis, involving the covariance matrix of the amplitudes. We present simulation results with 1/f noise and show a reduction in the residual noise with respect to ordinary destriping. This study is related to Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) activities.

Limits on isocurvature fluctuations from Boomerang and MAXIMA

We present the constraints on isocurvature fluctuations for a flat universe implied by the Boomerang and MAXIMA-1 data on the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background. Because the new data defines the shape of the angular power spectrum in the region of the first acoustic peaks much more clearly than earlier data, even a tilted pure isocurvature model is now ruled out. However, a mixed model with a sizable isocurvature contribution remains allowed. We consider primordial fluctuations with different spectral indices for the adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations, and find that the 95% C.L. upper limit to the isocurvature contribution to the low multipoles is

A maximum likelihood approach to the destriping technique

\ensuremath{\alpha}l~0.63.

Comparison of map-making algorithms for CMB experiments

The upper limit to the contribution in the