Cosmic string induced CMB maps

TL;DR

This paper presents high-resolution simulations of cosmic strings to generate detailed CMB temperature fluctuation maps across various scales, highlighting the significance of recombination effects on the angular power spectrum.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive method for creating full-sky and localized CMB maps seeded by cosmic strings, incorporating effects from recombination to the present.

Findings

Recombination effects significantly influence the angular power spectrum.

The generated maps include detailed pixel temperature statistics.

The study emphasizes the importance of high-resolution simulations for accurate CMB modeling.

Abstract

We compute maps of CMB temperature fluctuations seeded by cosmic strings using high resolution simulations of cosmic strings in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe. We create full-sky, 18-degree and 3-degree CMB maps, including the relevant string contribution at each resolution from before recombination to today. We extract the angular power spectrum from these maps, demonstrating the importance of recombination effects. We briefly discuss the probability density function of the pixel temperatures, their skewness and kurtosis.