Multiscale Methods Performances to Detect Cosmological non-Gaussian Signatures

Abstract

One of the goals in cosmology is to understand the formation and evolution of the structures resulting from the growth of initial density perturbations. Recent Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)observations indicate that these pertubations essentially came out of Gaussian distributed quantum fluctuations in the inflationary scenario. However, topological defects (e.g. cosmic strings) could contribute to the signal. One of their important footprints would be the predicted non-Gaussian distribution of the temperature anisotropies. In addition, other sources of non-Gaussian signatures do contribute to the signal, in particular the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect of galaxy clusters. In this general context and motivated by the future CMB experiments, the question we address is to search for, and discriminate between, different non-Gaussian signatures. To do so, we analyze simulated maps of the CMB temperature anisotropies using both wavelet and curvelet transforms. Curvelets take the form of basis elements which exhibit very high directional sensitivity and are highly anisotropic, which is not the case for wavelets. The sensitivity of both methods is evaluated using simulated data sets.