Abstract
The origin of large scale structure in the Universe is one of the most fundamental issues in cosmology. Gravitational instability models hold that large-scale structure forms as the result of gravitational amplification of initially small perturbations in the primordial density distribution. These models commonly assume Gaussian initial fluctuations with a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum. The COBE 1 Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR) maps of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy measure the primordial density distribution on super-horizon scales and offer a unique probe of the “initial conditions” for structure formation. I demonstrate the use of several statistical and topological quantities to test the CMB anisotropy on large angular scales against the hypothesis that the observed temperature fluctuations reflect Gaussian initial density perturbations with random phases. The data are in excellent agreement with the Gaussian hypothesis and rule out certain “toy models” of non-Gaussian amplitude distribution.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kogut, A. (1995). COBE DMR: Testing the Initial Conditions. In: Sánchez, N., Zichichi, A. (eds) Current Topics in Astrofundamental Physics: The Early Universe. NATO ASI Series, vol 467. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0095-3_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0095-3_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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