Testing the paradigm of adiabaticity

Abstract

We introduce the concepts of adiabatic (curvature) and isocurvature (entropy) cosmological perturbations and present their relevance for parameter estimation from cosmic microwave background anisotropies data. We emphasize that, while present-day data are in excellent agreement with pure adiabaticity, subdominant isocurvature contributions cannot be ruled out. We discuss model independent constraints on the isocurvature contribution. Finally, we argue that the Planck satellite will be able to do precision cosmology even if the assumption of adiabaticity is relaxed.