Primordial non-Gaussianity in the large scale structure of the Universe

TL;DR

This paper reviews how primordial non-Gaussianity can be used to understand the early universe's conditions, highlighting recent theoretical and observational advances that enable testing inflationary models through large scale structure data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of past and current efforts to detect primordial non-Gaussianity in large scale structure, emphasizing recent progress and future prospects.

Findings

Recent theoretical developments improve predictions of non-Gaussian signals.

Observational techniques are rapidly advancing to detect non-Gaussianity.

Constraints on inflationary models are becoming more competitive with CMB data.

Abstract

Primordial non-Gaussianity is a potentially powerful discriminant of the physical mechanisms that generated the cosmological fluctuations observed today. Any detection of significant non-Gaussianity would thus have profound implications for our understanding of cosmic structure formation. The large scale mass distribution in the Universe is a sensitive probe of the nature of initial conditions. Recent theoretical progress together with rapid developments in observational techniques will enable us to critically confront predictions of inflationary scenarios and set constraints as competitive as those from the Cosmic Microwave Background. In this paper, we review past and current efforts in the search for primordial non-Gaussianity in the large scale structure of the Universe.