Wavelet-Bayesian inference of cosmic strings embedded in the cosmic microwave background

Abstract

Cosmic strings are a well-motivated extension to the standard cosmological model and could induce a subdominant component in the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), in addition to the standard inflationary component. The detection of strings, while observationally challenging, would provide a direct probe of physics at very high energy scales. We develop a new framework for cosmic string inference, constructing a Bayesian analysis in wavelet space where the string-induced CMB component has distinct statistical properties to the standard inflationary component. Our wavelet-Bayesian framework provides a principled approach to compute the posterior distribution of the string tension $G\mu$ and the Bayesian evidence ratio comparing the string model to the standard inflationary model. Furthermore, we present a technique to recover an estimate of any string-induced CMB map embedded in observational data. Using Planck-like simulations we demonstrate the application of our framework and evaluate its performance. The method is sensitive to $G\mu \sim 5\times 10^{-7}$ for Nambu-Goto string simulations that include an integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) contribution only and do not include any recombination effects, before any parameters of the analysis are optimised. The sensitivity of the method compares favourably with other techniques applied to the same simulations.

18 pages, 14 figures, minor changes to match version accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (23)

• Planck 2018 results. VII. Isotropy and Statistics of the CMB
• Spherical Needlets for CMB Data Analysis
• Small-Angle CMB Temperature Anisotropies Induced by Cosmic Strings
• Exact reconstruction with directional wavelets on the sphere
• Asymptotics for spherical needlets
• Detection of the ISW effect and corresponding dark energy constraints
• Detection of the ISW effect and corresponding dark energy constraints made with directional spherical wavelets
• New CMB constraints for Abelian Higgs cosmic strings
• A high-significance detection of non-Gaussianity in the WMAP 5-year data using directional spherical wavelets
• Cosmological applications of a wavelet analysis on the sphere
• Can topological defects mimic the BICEP2 B-mode signal?
• Detecting Cosmic Strings in the CMB with the Canny Algorithm
• Probing dark energy with steerable wavelets through correlation of WMAP and NVSS local morphological measures
• Constraining topological defects with temperature and polarization anisotropies
• Simulating full-sky interferometric observations
• All sky CMB map from cosmic strings integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect
• Wavelet reconstruction of E and B modes for CMB polarisation and cosmic shear analyses
• Polarized wavelets and curvelets on the sphere
• A Simple Proposal for Radial 3D Needlets
• Cosmic string induced CMB maps
• Spin-SILC: CMB polarisation component separation with spin wavelets
• Level Crossing Analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation: A method for detecting cosmic strings
• A robust constraint on cosmic textures from the cosmic microwave background

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Cosmic string loop production functions
• Intermediate Mass Black Hole Seeds from Cosmic String Loops
• Massive black holes at high redshifts from superconducting cosmic strings
• How proper are Bayesian models in the astronomical literature?
• A Bayesian Framework for Cosmic String Searches in CMB Maps
• Primordial black holes from cusp collapse on cosmic strings
• A Convolutional Neural Network For Cosmic String Detection in CMB Temperature Maps
• Multi-Scale Pipeline for the Search of String-Induced CMB Anisotropies
• Dark Matter Distribution Induced by a Cosmic String Wake in the Nonlinear Regime
• Extracting the Signal of Cosmic String Wakes from 21-cm Observations
• On the Possible Enhancement of the Global $21$-cm Signal at Reionization from the Decay of Cosmic String Cusps
• Stochastic gravitational waves from long cosmic strings
• A Novel CMB Component Separation Method: Hierarchical Generalized Morphological Component Analysis
• Statistical detection of patterns in unidimensional distributions by continuous wavelet transforms
• Information Theoretic Bounds on Cosmic String Detection in CMB Maps with Noise
• Inferring Cosmic String Tension through the Neural Network Prediction of String Locations in CMB Maps
• Planck Limits on Cosmic String Tension Using Machine Learning
• The Global 21 cm Signal of a Network of Cosmic String Wakes
• Cosmic String Wake Detection using 3D Ridgelet Transformations
• Cosmic Strings-induced CMB anisotropies in light of Weighted Morphology
• Statistical detection of clumps and gaps in a random sample by continuous wavelet transforms: the 2D case
• Learning sparse representations on the sphere
• Sparse Bayesian mass-mapping using trans-dimensional MCMC
• Edge detection with polynomial frames on the sphere