Non-Gaussianity from isocurvature perturbations

Abstract

We develop a formalism to study non-Gaussianity in both curvature and isocurvature perturbations. It is shown that non-Gaussianity in the isocurvature perturbation between dark matter and photons leaves distinct signatures in the CMB temperature fluctuations, which may be confirmed in future experiments, or possibly, even in the currently available observational data. As an explicit example, we consider the QCD axion and show that it can actually induce sizable non-Gaussianity for the inflationary scale, H_{inf} = O(10^9 - 10^{11})GeV.

24 pages, 6 figures; references added; version to appear in JCAP