Testing for the Gaussian nature of cosmological density perturbations through the three-point temperature correlation function

• Published in: Physical review letters 1993-08, Vol.71 (8), p.1124-1127
• Main Authors: Luo, Xiaochun, Schramm, David N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astronomy; Astrophysics; Background radiations; Cosmology; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; General relativity and gravitation; Other topics in general relativity and gravitation; Particle-theory and field-theory models of the early universe (including cosmic pancakes, cosmic strings, chaotic phenomena, inflationary universe, etc.); Physics; Stellar systems. Galactic and extragalactic objects and systems. The universe; Unidentified sources and radiation outside the solar system
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.71.1124

One of the crucial aspects of density perturbations that are produced by the standard inflation scenario is that they are Gaussian where seeds produced by topological defects tend to be non-Gaussian. The three-point correlation function of the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CBR) provides a sensitive test of this aspect of the primordial density field. In this paper, this function is calculated in the general context of various allowed non-Gaussian models. It is shown that the Cosmic Background Explorer and the forthcoming South Pole and balloon CBR anisotropy data may be able to provide a crucial test of the Gaussian nature of the perturbations.