We examine the the running vacuum model with $\Lambda (H) = 3 \nu H^2 + \Lambda_0$, where $\nu$ is the model parameter and $\Lambda_0$ is the cosmological constant. From the data of the cosmic microwave background radiation, weak lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation along with the time dependent Hubble parameter $H(z)$ and weighted linear growth $f (z)\sigma_8(z)$ measurements, we find that $\nu=(1.37^{+0.72}_{-0.95})\times 10^{-4}$ with the best fitted $\chi^2$ value slightly smaller than that in the $\Lambda$CDM model.
The first searches for axions and axion-like particles with the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment are presented. Under the assumption of an axio-electric interaction in xenon, the coupling constant between axions and electrons, gAe is tested, using data collected in 2013 with an exposure totalling 95 live-days $\times$ 118 kg. A double-sided, profile likelihood ratio statistic test excludes gAe larger than 3.5 $\times$ 10$^{-12}$ (90% C.L.) for solar axions. Assuming the DFSZ theoretical description, the upper limit in coupling corresponds to an upper limit on axion mass of 0.12 eV/c$^{2}$, while for the KSVZ description masses above 36.6 eV/c$^{2}$ are excluded. For galactic axion-like particles, values of gAe larger than 4.2 $\times$ 10$^{-13}$ are excluded for particle masses in the range 1-16 keV/c$^{2}$. These are the most stringent constraints to date for these interactions.
In this article we study application of the recently introduced Nonlinear Field Space Theory (NFST) in the area of cosmology. We consider a scalar version of NFST, assuming that it plays a role of cosmological scalar field (i.e. inflaton or quintessence). For our analysis we choose the case of a field with the spherical phase space and borrow the relevant matter Hamiltonian from the XXZ Heisenberg model, which is known as describing a system of spins in condensed matter physics. Using NFST as the matter content of universe we investigate both the homogenous cosmological sector and linear perturbations of the test field. In the homogenous sector we find that nonlinearity of the field phase space is becoming relevant for large volumes of universe and then it can lead to a recollapse, and possibly also at very high energies, leading to the phase of a bounce. Quantization of the field is performed in the limit where nontrivial nature of its phase space can be neglected, while there is a non-vanishing contribution from the Lorentz symmetry breaking term of the Hamiltonian. As a result, in the leading order of the XXZ anisotropy parameter, we find that the inflationary spectral index remains unmodified with respect to the standard case but the total amplitude of perturbations is subject to a correction. Moreover, the Bunch-Davies vacuum state becomes appropriately generalized. The proposed new approach is bringing cosmology and condensed matter physics closer together, which may turn out to be beneficial for both disciplines.
We study scenarios in which the baryon asymmetry is generated from the decay of a particle whose mass originates from the spontaneous breakdown of a symmetry. Symmetry breaking in the early universe proceeds through a phase transition that gives the parent particle a time-dependent mass, which provides an additional departure from thermal equilibrium that could modify the efficiency of baryogenesis from out-of-equilibrium decays. We characterize the effects of various types of phase transitions and show that an enhancement in the baryon asymmetry from decays is possible if the phase transition is of the second order, although such models are typically fine-tuned. We also stress the role of new annihilation modes that deplete the parent particle abundance in models realizing such a phase transition, reducing the efficacy of baryogenesis.
Dark matter particles interacting via the exchange of very light spin-0 mediators can have large self-interaction rates and obtain their relic abundance from thermal freeze-out. At the same time, these models face strong bounds from direct and indirect probes of dark matter as well as a number of constraints on the properties of the mediator. We investigate whether these constraints can be consistent with having observable effects from dark matter self-interactions in astrophysical systems. For the case of a mediator with purely scalar couplings we point out the highly relevant impact of low-threshold direct detection experiments like CRESST-II, which essentially rule out the simplest realization of this model. These constraints can be significantly relaxed if the mediator has CP-violating couplings, but then the model faces strong constraints from CMB measurements, which can only be avoided in special regions of parameter space.
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The morphological properties of large scale structure of the Universe can be fully described by four Minkowski functionals (MFs), which provide important complementary information to other statistical observables such as the widely used 2-point statistics in configuration and Fourier spaces. In this work, for the first time, we present the differences in the morphology of large scale structure caused by modifications to general relativity (to address the cosmic acceleration problem), by measuring the MFs from N-body simulations of modified gravity and general relativity. We find strong statistical power when using the MFs to constrain modified theories of gravity: with a galaxy survey that has survey volume $\sim 0.125 (h^{-1}$Gpc$)^3$ and galaxy number density $\sim 1 / (h^{-1}$Mpc$)^{3}$, the two normal-branch DGP models and the F5 $f(R)$ model that we simulated can be discriminated from $\Lambda$CDM at a significance level >~ 5$\sigma$ with an individual MF measurement. Therefore, the MF of large scale structure is potentially a powerful probe of gravity, and its application to real data deserves active explorations.
It is said that there are no accidents or coincidences in physics. Within the minimal standard model combined with general relativity we point out that there are three exceptionally-long lifetimes which are consistent with being equal, and hence that there are two unexplained coincidences.
Measurements of line-of-sight dependent clustering via the galaxy power spectrum's multipole moments constitute a powerful tool for testing theoretical models in large-scale structure. Recent work shows that this measurement, including a moving line-of-sight, can be accelerated using Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) by decomposing the Legendre polynomials into products of Cartesian vectors. Here, we present a faster, optimal means of using FFTs for this measurement. We avoid redundancy present in the Cartesian decomposition by using a spherical harmonic decomposition of the Legendre polynomials. Consequently, our method is substantially faster: a given multipole of order $\ell$ requires only $2\ell+1$ FFTs rather than the $(\ell+1)(\ell+2)/2$ FFTs of the Cartesian approach. For the hexadecapole ($\ell = 4$), this translates to $40\%$ fewer FFTs, with increased savings for higher $\ell$. The reduction in wall-clock time enables the calculation of finely-binned wedges in $P(k,\mu)$, obtained by computing multipoles up to a large $\ell_{\rm max}$ and combining them. This transformation has a number of advantages. We demonstrate that by using non-uniform bins in $\mu$, we can isolate plane-of-sky (angular) systematics to a narrow bin at $\mu \simeq 0$ while eliminating the contamination from all other bins. We also show that the covariance matrix of clustering wedges binned uniformly in $\mu$ becomes ill-conditioned when combining multipoles up to large values of $\ell_{\rm max}$, but that the problem can be avoided with non-uniform binning. As an example, we present results using $\ell_{\rm max}=16$, for which our procedure requires a factor of 3.4 fewer FFTs than the Cartesian method, while removing the first $\mu$ bin leads only to a 7% increase in statistical error on $f \sigma_8$, as compared to a 54% increase with $\ell_{\rm max}=4$.
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity generally violate the strong equivalence principle, namely compact objects have a suppressed coupling to the scalar force, causing them to fall slower. A black hole is the extreme example where such a coupling vanishes, i.e. black hole has no scalar hair. Following earlier work, we explore observational scenarios for detecting strong equivalence principle violation, focusing on galileon gravity as an example. For galaxies in-falling towards galaxy clusters, the supermassive black hole can be offset from the galaxy center away from the direction of the cluster. Hence, well resolved images of galaxies around nearby clusters can be used to identify the displaced black hole via the star cluster bound to it. We show that this signal is accessible with imaging surveys, both ongoing ones such as the Dark Energy Survey, and future ground and space based surveys. Already, the observation of the central black hole in M~87 places new constraints on the galileon parameters, which we present here. $\mathcal{O}(1)$ matter couplings are disfavored for a large region of the parameter space. We also find a novel phenomenon whereby the black hole can escape the galaxy completely in less than one billion years.
We measure statistically anisotropic signatures imprinted in three-dimensional galaxy clustering using bipolar spherical harmonics (BipoSHs) in both Fourier space and configuration space. We then constrain a well-known quadrupolar anisotropy parameter $g_{2M}$ in the primordial power spectrum, parametrized by $P(\vec{k}) = \bar{P}(k) [ 1 + \sum_{M} g_{2M} Y_{2M}(\hat{k}) ]$, with $M$ determining the direction of the anisotropy. Such an anisotropic signal is easily contaminated by artificial asymmetries due to specific survey geometry. We precisely estimate the contaminated signal and finally subtract it from the data. Using the galaxy samples obtained by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 12, we find no evidence for violation of statistical isotropy, $g_{2M}$ for all $M$ to be of zero within the $2\sigma$ level. The $g_{2M}$-type anisotropy can originate from the primordial curvature power spectrum involving a directional-dependent modulation $g_* (\hat{k} \cdot \hat{p})^2$. The bound on $g_{2M}$ is translated into $g_*$ as $-0.09 < g_* < 0.08$ with a $95\%$ confidence level when $\hat{p}$ is marginalized over.
The outskirts of galaxy clusters are characterised by the interplay of gas accretion and dynamical evolution involving turbulence, shocks, magnetic fields and diffuse radio emission. The density and velocity structure of the gas in the outskirts provide an effective pressure support and affect all processes listed above. Therefore it is important to resolve and properly model the turbulent flow in these mildly overdense and relatively large cluster regions; this is a challenging task for hydrodynamical codes. In this work, grid-based simulations of a galaxy cluster are presented. The simulations are performed using adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) based on the regional variability of vorticity, and they include a subgrid scale model (SGS) for unresolved turbulence. The implemented AMR strategy is more effective in resolving the turbulent flow in the cluster outskirts than any previously used criterion based on overdensity. We study a cluster undergoing a major merger, which drives turbulence in the medium. The merger dominates the cluster energy budget out to a few virial radii from the centre. In these regions the shocked intra-cluster medium is resolved and the SGS turbulence is modelled, and compared with diagnostics on larger length scale. The volume-filling factor of the flow with large vorticity is about 60% at low redshift in the cluster outskirts, and thus smaller than in the cluster core. In the framework of modelling radio relics, this point suggests that upstream flow inhomogeneities might affect pre-existing cosmic-ray population and magnetic fields, and the resulting radio emission.
When it comes to searches for extensions to general relativity, large efforts are being dedicated to accurate predictions for the power spectrum of density perturbations. While this observable is known to be sensitive to the gravitational theory, its efficiency as a diagnostic for gravity is significantly reduced when Solar System constraints are strictly adhered to. We show that this problem can be overcome by studying weigthed density fields. We propose a transformation of the density field for which the impact of modified gravity on the power spectrum can be increased by more than a factor of three. The signal is not only amplified, but the modified gravity features are shifted to larger scales which are less affected by baryonic physics. Furthermore, the overall signal-to-noise increases, which in principle makes identifying signatures of modified gravity with future galaxy surveys more feasible. While our analysis is focused on modified gravity, the technique can be applied to other problems in cosmology, such as the detection of neutrinos, the effects of baryons or baryon acoustic oscillations.
We point out a unique mechanism to produce the relic abundance for glueball dark matter from a gauged $SU(N)_d$ hidden sector which is bridged to the standard model sector through heavy vectorlike quarks colored under gauge interactions from both sides. A necessary ingredient of our assumption is that the vectorlike quarks, produced either thermally or non-thermally, are abundant enough to dominate the universe for some time in the early universe. They later undergo dark color confinement and form unstable vectorlike-quarkonium states which annihilate decay and reheat the visible and dark sectors. The ratio of entropy dumped into two sectors and the final energy budget in the dark glueballs is only determined by low energy parameters, including the intrinsic scale of the dark $SU(N)_d$, $\Lambda_d$, and number of dark colors, $N_d$, but depend weakly on parameters in the ultraviolet such as the vectorlike quark mass or the initial condition. We call this a cosmic selection rule for the glueball dark matter relic density.
We investigate the growth of bulges in bright ($M_B<-20$) disc galaxies since
$z\sim1$, in rest-frame B and I-band, using images from HST ACS and WFC3 in
GOODS-South for high redshifts ($0.4<z<1.0$) and SDSS for local
($0.02<z<0.05$). The growth history has been traced by performing two-component
bulge-disc decomposition and further classifying the bulges into pseudos and
classicals using Kormendy relation. We have about $27\%$ pseudo and $40\%$
classical bulges in our sample. Classical bulges are brighter than pseudo, in
both rest-bands, at all redshifts probed here; in fact since $z\sim0.77$,
classical are about $\sim1$ mag brighter than pseudo bulges. Both bulges have
witnessed substantial growth, more than half of their present day stellar mass
has been gained since $z\sim1$. Their host discs have grown concurrently,
becoming progressively brighter in rest-frame I-band.
The high redshift host discs of both pseudo and classical bulges are found to
be equally clumpy in rest-frame B-band. In the same band, we found that the
growth of classical bulges is accompanied by fading of their host discs - which
might be an indication of secular processes in action. However, both host disc
as well as the bulge have grown substantially in terms of stellar mass. Our
analysis suggests that, clump migration and secular processes alone can not
account for the bulge growth, since $z\sim1$, accretion and minor mergers would
be required.
Halo bias is the one of the key ingredients of the halo models. It was shown at a given redshift to be only dependent, to the first order, on the halo mass. In this study, four types of cosmic web environments: clusters, filaments, sheets and voids are defined within a state of the art high resolution $N$-body simulation. Within those environments, we use both halo-dark matter cross-correlation and halo-halo auto correlation functions to probe the clustering properties of halos. The nature of the halo bias differs strongly among the four different cosmic web environments we describe. With respect to the overall population, halos in clusters have significantly lower biases in the {$10^{11.0}\sim 10^{13.5}\msunh$} mass range. In other environments however, halos show extremely enhanced biases up to a factor 10 in voids for halos of mass {$\sim 10^{12.0}\msunh$}. We demonstrate for the first time that the cosmic web environment is another first order term that should be rightfully implemented along with mass in halo bias models. In addition, age dependency is found to be only significant in clusters and filaments for relatively small halos $\la 10^{12.5}\msunh$.
A generalized version for the Rastall theory is proposed showing the agreement with the cosmic accelerating expansion. In this regard, a coupling between geometry and the pressureless matter fields is derived which may play the role of dark energy responsible for the current accelerating expansion phase. Moreover, our study also shows that the radiation field may not be coupled to the geometry in a non-minimal way which represents that the ordinary energy-momentum conservation law is respected by the radiation source. It is also shown that the primary inflationary era may be justified by the ability of the geometry to couple to the energy-momentum source in an empty flat FRW universe. In fact, this ability is independent of the existence of the energy-momentum source and may compel the empty flat FRW universe to expand exponentially. Finally, we consider a flat FRW universe field by a spatially homogeneous scalar field evolving in potential $\mathcal{V}(\phi)$, and study the results of applying the slow-roll approximation to the system which may lead to an inflationary phase for the universe expansion.
We describe a novel method to measure the absolute orientation of the polarization plane of the CMB with arcsecond accuracy, enabling unprecedented measurements for cosmology and fundamental physics. Existing and planned CMB polarization instruments looking for primordial B-mode signals need an independent, experimental method for systematics control on the absolute polarization orientation. The lack of such a method limits the accuracy of the detection of inflationary gravitational waves, the constraining power on the neutrino sector through measurements of gravitational lensing of the CMB, the possibility of detecting Cosmic Birefringence, and the ability to measure primordial magnetic fields. Sky signals used for calibration and direct measurements of the detector orientation cannot provide an accuracy better than 1 deg. Self-calibration methods provide better accuracy, but may be affected by foreground signals and rely heavily on model assumptions. The POLarization Orientation CALibrator for Cosmology, POLOCALC, will dramatically improve instrumental accuracy by means of an artificial calibration source flying on balloons and aerial drones. A balloon-borne calibrator will provide far-field source for larger telescopes, while a drone will be used for tests and smaller polarimeters. POLOCALC will also allow a unique method to measure the telescopes' polarized beam. It will use microwave emitters between 40 and 150 GHz coupled to precise polarizing filters. The orientation of the source polarization plane will be registered to sky coordinates by star cameras and gyroscopes with arcsecond accuracy. This project can become a rung in the calibration ladder for the field: any existing or future CMB polarization experiment observing our polarization calibrator will enable measurements of the polarization angle for each detector with respect to absolute sky coordinates.
We study co-existence system of both bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom. For such system with up to first derivatives in Lagrangian, we find Ostrogradsky-type ghost-free condition in Hamiltonian analysis, which is found to be the same with requiring that the equations of motion of fermions are first-order in Lagrangian formulation. When fermionic degrees of freedom are present, uniqueness of time evolution is not guaranteed a priori because of the Grassmann property. We confirm that the additional condition, which is introduced to close Hamiltonian analysis, also ensures the uniqueness of the time evolution of system.
This work studies wave propagation in the most general scalar-tensor theories, particularly focusing on the causal structure realized in these theories and also the shock formation process induced by nonlinear effects. For these studies we use the Horndeski theory and its generalization to the two scalar field case. We show that propagation speeds of gravitational wave and scalar field wave in these theories may differ from the light speed depending on background field configuration, and find that a Killing horizon becomes a boundary of causal domain if the scalar fields share the symmetry of the background spacetime. About the shock formation, we focus on transport of discontinuity in second derivatives of the metric and scalar field in the shift-symmetric Horndeski theory. We find that amplitude of the discontinuity generically diverges within finite time, which corresponds to shock formation. It turns out that the canonical scalar field and the scalar DBI model, among other theories described by the Horndeski theory, are free from such shock formation even when the background geometry and scalar field configuration are nontrivial. We also observe that gravitational wave is protected against shock formation when the background has some symmetries at least. This fact may indicate that the gravitational wave in this theory is more well-behaved compared to the scalar field, which typically suffers from shock formation.
The temperature of interstellar dust particles is of great importance to astronomers. It plays a crucial role in the thermodynamics of interstellar clouds, because of the gas-dust collisional coupling. It is also a key parameter in astrochemical studies that governs the rate at which molecules form on dust. In 3D (magneto)hydrodynamic simulations often a simple expression for the dust temperature is adopted, because of computational constraints, while astrochemical modelers tend to keep the dust temperature constant over a large range of parameter space. Our aim is to provide an easy-to-use parametric expression for the dust temperature as a function of visual extinction ($A_{\rm V}$) and to shed light on the critical dependencies of the dust temperature on the grain composition. We obtain an expression for the dust temperature by semi-analytically solving the dust thermal balance for different types of grains and compare to a collection of recent observational measurements. We also explore the effect of ices on the dust temperature. Our results show that a mixed carbonaceous-silicate type dust with a high carbon volume fraction matches the observations best. We find that ice formation allows the dust to be warmer by up to 15% at high optical depths ($A_{\rm V}> 20$ mag) in the interstellar medium. Our parametric expression for the dust temperature is presented as $T_{\rm d} = \left[ 11 + 5.7\times \tanh\bigl( 0.61 - \log_{10}(A_{\rm V})\bigr) \right] \, \chi_{\rm uv}^{1/5.9}$, where $\chi_{\rm uv}$ is in units of the Draine (1978) UV field
This paper discusses a phenomenon of backreaction within the Szekeres model. Backreaction is a process that describes feedback of structure formation on the global evolution of the Universe. There is an ongoing debate that focuses on the amplitude of backreaction and whether non-linear effects associated with the growth of cosmic structures can alter the evolution of the Universe or whether the Friedmann equations and perturbative approach is sufficient to describe our Universe. The Szekeres model is the most general, exact, inhomogeneous, cosmological solution of the Einstein equations that is presently known. The analysis presented in this paper shows that once the growth of cosmic structures is non-linear the evolution of the system can be affected by backreaction. It is also shown that while the dimensionless kinematic backreaction $\Omega_{\cal Q}$ is small (even as low as $\Omega_{\cal Q}\sim10^{-7}$ inside cosmic voids and $ \Omega_{\cal Q} \sim 10^{-2}$ within overdense regions), the curvature-induced backreaction $\Omega_{\cal R}$ can be of order of unity leading to highly non-linear evolution. This shows that care should be taken when drawing conclusions about the global evolution of the Universe based only on arguments related to the amplitude of kinematic backreaction.
In this paper we study canonical scalar field models with a varying second slow-roll parameter, that allow transitions between constant-roll eras. In the models with two constant-roll eras it is possible to avoid fine-tunings in the initial conditions of the scalar field. We mainly focus on the stability of the resulting solutions and we also investigate if these solutions are attractors of the cosmological system. We shall calculate the resulting scalar potential and by using a numerical approach, we examine the stability and attractor properties of the solutions. As we show, the first constant-roll era is dynamically unstable towards linear perturbations and the cosmological system is driven by the attractor solution to the final constant-roll era. As we demonstrate, it is possible to have a nearly-scale invariant power spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations in some cases, however this is strongly model dependent and depends on the rate of the final constant-roll era. Finally, we present in brief the essential features of a model that allows oscillations between constant-roll eras.
We present the transient source detection efficiencies of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), parameterizing the number of transients that PTF found, versus the number of similar transients that occurred over the same period in the survey search area but that were missed. PTF was an optical sky survey carried out with the Palomar 48-inch telescope over 2009-2012, observing more than 8000 square degrees of sky with cadences of between 1 and 5 days, locating around 50,000 non-moving transient sources, and spectroscopically confirming around 1900 supernovae. We assess the effectiveness with which PTF detected transient sources, by inserting ~7 million artificial point sources into real PTF data. We then study the efficiency with which the PTF real-time pipeline recovered these sources as a function of the source magnitude, host galaxy surface brightness, and various observing conditions (using proxies for seeing, sky brightness, and transparency). The product of this study is a multi-dimensional recovery efficiency grid appropriate for the range of observing conditions that PTF experienced, and that can then be used for studies of the rates, environments, and luminosity functions of different transient types using detailed Monte Carlo simulations. We illustrate the technique using the observationally well-understood class of type Ia supernovae.
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We explore an extended cosmological scenario where the dark matter is an admixture of cold and additional non-cold species. The mass and temperature of the non-cold dark matter particles are extracted from a number of cosmological measurements. Among others, we consider tomographic weak lensing data and Milky Way dwarf satellite galaxy counts. We also study the potential of these scenarios in alleviating the existing tensions between local measurements and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) estimates of the $S_8$ parameter, with $S_8=\sigma_8\sqrt{\Omega_m}$, and of the Hubble constant $H_0$. In principle, a sub-dominant, non-cold dark matter particle with a mass $m_X\sim$~keV, could achieve the goals above. However, the preferred ranges for its temperature and its mass are different when extracted from weak lensing observations and from Milky Way dwarf satellite galaxy counts, since these two measurements require suppressions of the matter power spectrum at different scales. Therefore, solving simultaneously the CMB-weak lensing tensions and the small scale crisis in the standard cold dark matter picture via only one non-cold dark matter component seems to be challenging.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies exhibit a large-scale dipolar power asymmetry. To determine whether this is due to a real, physical modulation or is simply a large statistical fluctuation requires the measurement of new modes. Here we forecast how well CMB polarization data from Planck and future experiments will be able to confirm or constrain physical models for modulation. Fitting several such models to the Planck temperature data allows us to provide predictions for polarization asymmetry. While for some models and parameters Planck polarization will decrease error bars on the modulation amplitude by only a small percentage, we show, importantly, that cosmic-variance-limited (and in some cases even Planck) polarization data can decrease the errors by considerably better than the expectation of $\sqrt 2$ based on simple $\ell$-space arguments. We project that if the primordial fluctuations are truly modulated (with parameters as indicated by Planck temperature data) then Planck will be able to make a 2$\sigma$ detection of the modulation model with 20-75% probability, increasing to 45-99% when cosmic-variance-limited polarization is considered. We stress that these results are quite model dependent. Cosmic variance in temperature is important: combining statistically isotropic polarization with temperature data will spuriously increase the significance of the temperature signal with 30% probability for Planck.
We present constraints on the reheating era within the string Fibre Inflation scenario, in terms of the effective equation-of-state parameter of the reheating fluid, $w_{reh}$. The results of the analysis, completely independent on the details of the inflaton physics around the vacuum, illustrate the behavior of the number of $e$-foldings during the reheating stage, $N_{reh}$, and of the final reheating temperature, $T_{reh}$, as functions of the scalar spectral index, $n_s$. We analyze our results with respect to the current bounds given by the PLANCK mission data and to upcoming cosmological experiments. We find that large values of the equation-of-state parameter ($w_{reh}>1/3$) are particularly favored as the scalar spectral index is of the order of $n_s\sim 0.9680$, with a $\sigma_{n_s}\sim 0.002$ error. Moreover, we compare the behavior of the general reheating functions $N_{reh}$ and $T_{reh}$ in the Fibre Inflation scenario with that extracted by the class of the $\alpha$-attractor models with $\alpha=2$. We find that the corresponding reheating curves are very similar in the two cases.
We use information entropy to analyze the anisotropy in the mock galaxy catalogues from dark matter distribution and simulated biased galaxy distributions from $\Lambda$CDM N-body simulation. We show that one can recover the linear bias parameter of the simulated galaxy distributions by comparing the radial, polar and azimuthal anisotropies in the simulated galaxy distributions with that from the dark matter distribution. This method for determination of the linear bias requires only $O(N)$ operations as compared to $O(N^{2})$ or at least $O(N \log N)$ operations required for the methods based on the two-point correlation function and the power spectrum. We apply this method to determine the linear bias parameter for the galaxies in the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) and find that the 2MRS galaxies in the $K_{s}$ band have a linear bias of $\sim 1.3$.
Here we investigate the evolution of a Milky Way (MW) -like galaxy with the aim of predicting the properties of its progenitors all the way from $z \sim 20$ to $z = 0$. We apply GAMESH (Graziani et al. 2015) to a high resolution N-Body simulation following the formation of a MW-type halo and we investigate its properties at $z \sim 0$ and its progenitors in $0 < z < 4$. Our model predicts the observed galaxy main sequence, the mass-metallicity and the fundamental plane of metallicity relations in $0 < z < 4$. It also reproduces the stellar mass evolution of candidate MW progenitors in $0 \lesssim z \lesssim 2.5$, although the star formation rate and gas fraction of the simulated galaxies follow a shallower redshift dependence. We find that while the MW star formation and chemical enrichment are dominated by the contribution of galaxies hosted in Lyman $\alpha$-cooling halos, at z > 6 the contribution of star forming mini-halos is comparable to the star formation rate along the MW merger tree. These systems might then provide an important contribution in the early phases of reionization. A large number of mini-halos with old stellar populations, possibly Population~III stars, are dragged into the MW or survive in the Local Group. At low redshift dynamical effects, such as halo mergers, tidal stripping and halo disruption redistribute the baryonic properties among halo families. These results are critically discussed in light of future improvements including a more sophisticated treatment of radiative feedback and inhomogeneous metal enrichment.
Using a state-of-the-art cosmological simulation of merging proto-galaxies at high redshift from the FIRE project, with explicit treatments of star formation and stellar feedback in the interstellar medium, we investigate the formation of star clusters and examine one of the formation hypothesis of present-day metal-poor globular clusters. We find that frequent mergers in high-redshift proto-galaxies could provide a fertile environment to produce long-lasting bound star clusters. The violent merger event disturbs the gravitational potential and pushes a large gas mass of ~> 1e5-6 Msun collectively to high density, at which point it rapidly turns into stars before stellar feedback can stop star formation. The high dynamic range of the reported simulation is critical in realizing such dense star-forming clouds with a small dynamical timescale, t_ff <~ 3 Myr, shorter than most stellar feedback timescales. Our simulation then allows us to trace how clusters could become virialized and tightly-bound to survive for up to ~420 Myr till the end of the simulation. Because the cluster's tightly-bound core was formed in one short burst, and the nearby older stars originally grouped with the cluster tend to be preferentially removed, at the end of the simulation the cluster has a small age spread.
The cosmic optical background is an important observable that constrains energy production in stars and more exotic physical processes in the universe, and provides a crucial cosmological benchmark against which to judge theories of structure formation. Measurement of the absolute brightness of this background is complicated by local foregrounds like the Earth's atmosphere and sunlight reflected from local interplanetary dust, and large discrepancies in the inferred brightness of the optical background have resulted. Observations from probes far from the Earth are not affected by these bright foregrounds. Here we analyze data from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument on NASA's New Horizons mission acquired during cruise phase outside the orbit of Jupiter, and find a statistical upper limit on the optical background's brightness similar to the integrated light from galaxies. We conclude that a carefully performed survey with LORRI could yield uncertainties comparable to those from galaxy counting measurements.
In this paper, we revisit the issue of static hairs of black holes in gravitational theories with broken Lorentz invariance in the case that the speed $c_{\phi}$ of the khronon field becomes infinitely large, $c_{\phi} = \infty$, for which the sound horizon of the khronon field coincides with the universal horizon, and the boundary conditions at the sound horizon reduce to those given normally at the universal horizons. As a result, less boundary conditions are present in this extreme case in comparison with the case $c_{\phi} = $ finite. Then, it would be expected that static hairs might exist. However, we show analytically that even in this case static hairs still cannot exist, based on a decoupling limit analysis. We also consider the cases in which $c_{\phi}$ is finite but with $c_{\phi} \gg 1$, and obtain the same conclusion.
General Relativity has shown an outstanding observational success in the scales where it has been directly tested. However, modifications have been intensively explored in the regimes where it seems either incomplete or signals its own limit of validity. In particular, the breakdown of unitarity near the Planck scale strongly suggests that General Relativity needs to be modified at high energies and quantum gravity effects are expected to be important. This is related to the existence of spacetime singularities when the solutions of General Relativity are extrapolated to regimes where curvatures are large. In this sense, Born-Infeld inspired modifications of gravity have shown an extraordinary ability to regularise the gravitational dynamics, leading to non-singular cosmologies and regular black hole spacetimes in a very robust manner and without resorting to quantum gravity effects. This has boosted the interest in these theories in applications to stellar structure, compact objects, inflationary scenarios, cosmological singularities, and black hole and wormhole physics, among others. We review the motivations, various formulations, and main results achieved within these theories, including their observational viability, and provide an overview of current open problems and future research opportunities.
Both k-essence and the pressureless perfect fluid develop caustic singularities at finite time. We further explore the connection between the two and show that they belong to the same class of models, which admits the caustic free completion by means of the canonical complex scalar field. Specifically, the free massive/self-interacting complex scalar reproduces dynamics of pressureless perfect fluid/k-essence under certain initial conditions in the limit of large mass/sharp self-interacting potential. We elucidate the mechanism of resolving caustic singularities. The time of the collapse is promoted to the complex number. Hence, the singularity is not developed in the real time. The same conclusion holds for the collection of collisionless particles modeled by means of the Schroedinger equation, or for the ultra-light axion.
Lecture notes for 8 lectures on the `Physics of Lyman alpha Radiative Transfer', given at the 46th Saas-Fee winter school held in Les Diablerets, Switzerland on March 13-19 2016. These lectures aimed at offering basic insights into Lyman alpha (Lya) radiative processes including emission processes and Lya radiative transfer, and highlighting some of the physics associated with these processes. The notes include derivations in greater detail than what was discussed during the lectures.
It has long been known that no static, spherically symmetric, asymptotically flat Klein-Gordon scalar field configuration surrounding a nonrotating black hole can exist in general relativity. In a series of previous papers we proved that, at the effective level, this no-hair theorem can be circumvented by relaxing the staticity assumption: for appropriate model parameters there are quasi-bound scalar field configurations living on a fixed Schwarzschild background which, although not being strictly static, have a larger lifetime than the age of the universe. This situation arises when the mass of the scalar field distribution is much smaller than the black hole mass, and following the analogies with the hair in the literature we dubbed these long-lived field configurations wigs. Here we extend our previous work to include the gravitational backreaction produced by the scalar wigs. We derive new approximate solutions of the spherically symmetric Einstein-Klein-Gordon system which represent self-gravitating scalar wigs surrounding black holes. These configurations interpolate between boson star configurations and Schwarzschild black holes dressed with the long-lived scalar test field distributions discussed in previous papers. Nonlinear numerical evolutions of initial data sets extracted from our approximate solutions support the validity of our approach. Arbitrarily large lifetimes are still possible, although for the parameter space that we analyze in this paper they seem to decay faster than the quasi-bound states. Finally, we speculate about the possibility that these configurations could describe the innermost regions of dark matter halos.
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Compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIPs) are primordial fluctuations that balance baryon and dark-matter isocurvature to leave the total matter density unperturbed. The effects of CIPs on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies are similar to those produced by weak lensing of the CMB: smoothing of the power spectrum, and generation of non-Gaussian features. Previous work considered the CIP effects on the CMB power-spectrum but neglected to include the CIP effects on estimates of the lensing potential power spectrum (though its contribution to the non-Gaussian, connected, part of the CMB trispectrum). Here, the CIP contribution to the standard estimator for the lensing potential power-spectrum is derived, and along with the CIP contributions to the CMB power-spectrum, Planck data is used to place limits on the root-mean-square CIP fluctuations on CMB scales, $\Delta_{\rm rms}^2(R_{\rm CMB})$. The resulting constraint of $\Delta_{\rm rms}^2(R_{\rm CMB}) < 4.3 \times 10^{-3}$ using this new technique improves on past work by a factor of $\sim 3$. We find that for Planck data our constraints almost reach the sensitivity of the optimal CIP estimator. The method presented here is currently the most sensitive probe of the amplitude of a scale-invariant CIP power spectrum placing an upper limit of $A_{\rm CIP}< 0.017$ at 95% CL. Future measurements of the large-scale CMB lensing potential power spectrum could probe CIP amplitudes as low as $\Delta_{\rm rms}^2(R_{\rm CMB}) = 8 \times 10^{-5}$ ($A_{\rm CIP} = 3.2 \times 10^{-4}$).
Protected by an approximate shift symmetry, axions are well motivated candidates for driving cosmic inflation. Their generic coupling to the Chern-Simons term of any gauge theory gives rise to a wide range of potentially observable signatures, including equilateral non-Gaussianites in the CMB, chiral gravitational waves in the range of direct gravitational wave detectors and primordial black holes (PBHs). In this paper we revisit these predictions for axion inflation models non-minimally coupled to gravity. Contrary to the case of minimally coupled models which typically predict scale-invariant mass distributions for the generated PBHs at small scales, we demonstrate how broadly peaked PBH spectra naturally arises in this setup. For specific parameter values, all of dark matter can be accounted for by PBHs.
We compute the Bayesian Evidence for the theoretical models considered in the main analysis of Planck cosmic microwave background data. By utilising carefully-defined nearest-neighbour distances in parameter space, we reuse the Monte Carlo Markov Chains already produced for parameter inference to compute Bayes factors $B$ for many different models and with many different datasets from Planck with and without ancillary data. When CMB lensing is included, we find that the standard 6-parameter flat $\Lambda$CDM model is favoured over all other models considered, with curvature being mildly favoured when CMB lensing is not included. We also conclude that many alternative models are strongly disfavoured by the data. These include strong evidence against primordial correlated isocurvature models ($\ln B=-8.0$), non-zero scalar-to-tensor ratio ($\ln B=-4.3$), running of the spectral index ($\ln B = -4.7$), curvature ($\ln B=-3.6$), non-standard numbers of neutrinos ($\ln B=-3.1$), non-standard neutrino masses ($\ln B=-3.2$), non-standard lensing potential ($\ln B=-3.9$), evolving dark energy ($\ln B=-3.2$), sterile neutrinos ($\ln B=-7.0$), and extra sterile neutrinos with a non-zero scalar-to-tensor ratio ($\ln B=-10.8$). Other models are less strongly disfavoured with respect to flat $\Lambda$CDM. As with all analyses based on Bayesian Evidence, the final numbers depend on the widths of the parameter priors. We adopt for our calculations the priors used in the Planck parameter inference analyses themselves while performing a sensitivity analysis for two of the best competitor extensions. The resulting message is nevertheless clear: current data favour the standard flat $\Lambda$CDM model. Our quantitative conclusion is that extensions beyond the standard cosmological model are strongly disfavoured, even where they are introduced to explain tensions or anomalies.
A tensor-type cosmological perturbation, defined as a transverse and traceless spatial fluctuation, is often interpreted as the gravitational waves. While decoupled from the scalar-type perturbations in linear order, the tensor perturbations can be sourced from the scalar-type in the nonlinear order. The tensor perturbations generated by the quadratic combination of linear scalar-type cosmological perturbation are widely studied in the literature, but all previous studies are based on zero-shear gauge without proper justification. Here, we show that, being second order in perturbation, such an induced tensor perturbation is generically gauge dependent. In particular, the gravitational wave power spectrum depends on the hypersurface (temporal gauge) condition taken for the linear scalar perturbation. We further show that, during the matter-dominated era, the induced tensor modes dominate over the linearly evolved primordial gravitational waves amplitude for $k\gtrsim10^{-2}~[h/{\rm Mpc}]$ even for the gauge that gives lowest induced tensor modes with the optimistic choice of primordial gravitational waves ($r=0.1$). The induced tensor modes, therefore, must be modeled correctly specific to the observational strategy for the measurement of primordial gravitational waves from large-scale structure via, for example, parity-odd mode of weak gravitational lensing, or clustering fossils.
We present a new galaxy cluster catalog constructed from SDSS DR9 using an
Adaptive Matched Filter technique. Our main catalog has 46,479 galaxy clusters
with richness $\Lambda_{200} > 20$ in the redshift range 0.045 $\le z <$ 0.641
in $\sim$11,500 $deg^{2}$ of the sky. Angular position, richness, core and
virial radii and redshift estimates for these clusters, as well as their error
analysis are provided. We also provide an extended version with a lower
richness cut, containing 79,368 clusters. This version, in addition to the
clusters in the main catalog, also contains those clusters (with richness
$<20$) which have a one-to-one match in the DR8 catalog developed by Wen et al
(WHL). We obtain probabilities for cluster membership for each galaxy and
implement several procedures for the identification and removal of false
cluster detections.
We compare our catalog with other SDSS-based ones such as the redMaPPer
(26,350 clusters) and the WHL (132,684 clusters) in the same area of the sky
and in the overlapping redshift range. We match 97$\%$ of the richest Abell
clusters, the same as WHL, while redMaPPer matches $\sim 90\%$ of these
clusters. Considering AMF DR9 richness bins, redMaPPer consistently does not
possess one-to-one matches for $\sim$20$\%$ AMF DR9 clusters with
$\Lambda_{200}>40$, while WHL matches $\geq$70$\%$ of these missed clusters on
average. We also match the AMF catalog with the X-ray cluster catalogs BAX,
MCXC and a combined catalog from NORAS and REFLEX. We consistently obtain a
greater number of one-to-one matches for X-ray clusters across higher
luminosity bins ($L_x>6 \times 10^{44}$ ergs/sec) than redMaPPer while WHL
matches the most clusters overall. For the most luminous clusters ($L_x>8$),
our catalog performs equivalently to WHL. This new catalog provides a wider
sample than redMaPPer while retaining many fewer objects than WHL.
The ELUCID project aims to build a series of realistic cosmological simulations that reproduce the spatial and mass distribution of the galaxies as observed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This requires powerful reconstruction techniques to create constrained initial conditions. We test the reconstruction method by applying it to several $N$-body simulations. We use 2 medium resolution simulations from each of which three additional constrained $N$-body simulations were produced. We compare the resulting friend of friend catalogs by using the particle indexes as tracers, and quantify the quality of the reconstruction by varying the main smoothing parameter. The cross identification method we use proves to be efficient, and the results suggest that the most massive reconstructed halos are effectively traced from the same Lagrangian regions in the initial conditions. Preliminary time dependence analysis indicates that high mass end halos converge only at a redshift close to the reconstruction redshift. This suggests that, for earlier snapshots, only collections of progenitors may be effectively cross-identified.
We examine the additional physics potential for a large scale argon experiment that could also provide some information on the direction of the recoiling nucleus. We explore the statistical feasibility of directional signal detection using a simplified approach that categorizes events based on the vertical or horizontal orientation of nuclear recoil direction and with a likelihood-ratio statistical approach that discriminates directional signal against a possible isotropic background source.
We report the results of the 2dF-VST ATLAS Cold Spot galaxy redshift survey (2CSz) based on imaging from VST ATLAS and spectroscopy from 2dF AAOmega over the core of the CMB Cold Spot. We sparsely surveyed the inner 5$^{\circ}$ radius of the Cold Spot to a limit of $i_{AB} \le 19.2$, sampling $\sim7000$ galaxies at $z<0.4$. We have found voids at $z=$ 0.14, 0.26 and 0.30 but they are interspersed with small over-densities and the scale of these voids is insufficient to explain the Cold Spot through the $\Lambda$CDM ISW effect. Combining with previous data out to $z\sim1$, we conclude that the CMB Cold Spot could not have been imprinted by a void confined to the inner core of the Cold Spot. Additionally we find that our 'control' field GAMA G23 shows a similarity in its galaxy redshift distribution to the Cold Spot. Since the GAMA G23 line-of-sight shows no evidence of a CMB temperature decrement we conclude that the Cold Spot may have a primordial origin rather than being due to line-of-sight effects.
We present a theoretical model to predict the properties of an observed $z =$ 5.72 Lyman $\alpha$ emitter galaxy - CIV absorption pair separated by 1384 comoving kpc/h. We use the separation of the pair and an outflow velocity/time travelling argument to demonstrate that the observed galaxy cannot be the source of metals for the CIV absorber. We find a plausible explanation for the metal enrichment in the context of our simulations: a dwarf galaxy with $M_{\star} =$ 1.87 $\times$ 10$^{9} M_{\odot}$ located 119 comoving kpc/h away with a wind velocity of $\sim$ 100 km/s launched at $z \sim$ 7. Such a dwarf ($M_{\text{UV}} =$ - 20.5) is fainter than the detection limit of the observed example. In a general analysis of galaxy - CIV absorbers, we find galaxies with -20.5 $< M_{\text{UV}} <$ - 18.8 are responsible for the observed metal signatures. In addition, we find no correlation between the mass of the closest galaxy to the absorber and the distance between them, but a weak anti-correlation between the strength of the absorption and the separation of galaxy - absorber pairs.
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Prior change is discussed in observational constraints studies of nonlocally modified gravity. In the latter, a model characterized by a modification of the form $\sim m^2 R\Box^{-2}R$ to the Einstein-Hilbert action was compared against the base $\Lambda$CDM one in a Bayesian way. It was found that the competing modified gravity model is significantly disfavored (at $22 \,$:$\, 1$ in terms of betting-odds) against $\Lambda$CDM given CMB+SNIa+BAO data, because of a dominant tension appearing in the $H_0 \,$-$\, \Omega_M$ plan. We identify the underlying mechanism generating such a tension and show that it is mostly caused by the late-time, quite smooth, phantom nature of the effective dark energy described by the nonlocal model. We find possible solutions for it to be resolved and explore a given one that consists in extending the initial baseline from one massive neutrino eigenstate to three degenerate ones, whose absolute mass $\sum m_\nu \, / \, 3$ is allowed to take values within a reasonable prior interval. As a net effect, the absolute neutrino mass is inferred to be non-vanishing at $2 \sigma$ level, best-fitting at $\sum m_\nu \approx 0.21 {\, \rm eV}$, and the Bayesian tension disappears rendering the nonlocal gravity model statistically equivalent to $\Lambda$CDM, given recent CMB+SNIa+BAO data. We also discuss constraints from growth rate measurements $f \sigma_8$ whose fit is found to be improved by a larger massive neutrino fraction as well. The $\nu$-extended nonlocal model also prefers a higher value of $H_0$ than $\Lambda$CDM, therefore in better agreement with local measurements.
We discuss early structure formation of small scales sourced by primordial black holes (PBHs) which constitute a small part of present cold dark matter component. We calculate the mass function and power spectrum of haloes originated from the Poisson fluctuations of PBH number and show that the number of small haloes is significantly modified in the presence of PBHs even if their fraction accounts for only $10^{-4}$--$10^{-3}$ of total dark matter abundance. We then compute the subsequent 21cm signature from those haloes. We find that PBHs can provide major contributions at high redshifts within the detectability of future experiments such as Square Kilometer Array, and provide a forecast constraint on the PBH fraction.
We study possible electromagnetic radiation caused by the $\phi {\widetilde F} F$ interaction in an oscillating axion-like background field and a large scale magnetic field in galaxy. We find that a fuzzy dark matter background and the mG scale magnetic field in the galactic center can give rise to a quite strong radiation and a very quick energy release. We also show that there is an energy transfer between the fuzzy dark matter sector and the electromagnetic sector because of the presence of the generated radiation field and the galactic magnetic field. Contrary to the common idea that signatures of ultra-light fuzzy dark matter are very rare and fuzzy dark matter is hard to detect, we have shown using the example of the possible radiation that the fuzzy dark matter together with a large scale magnetic field is possible to give rise to fruitful physics.
High-energy astrophysical events that cause galaxy-scale extinctions have been proposed as a way to explain or mollify the Fermi Paradox, by making the universe at earlier times more dangerous for evolving life, and reducing its present-day prevalence. Here, we present an anthropic argument that a more dangerous early universe can have the opposite effect, actually increasing estimates for the amount of visible extragalactic life at the present cosmic time. This occurs when civilizations are assumed to expand and displace possible origination sites for the evolution of life, and estimates are made by assuming that humanity has appeared at a typical time. The effect is not seen if advanced life is assumed to always remain stationary, with no displacement of habitable worlds.
We consider a simple extension of the minimal left-right symmetric model (LRSM) in order to explain the PeV neutrino events seen at the IceCube experiment from a heavy decaying dark matter. The dark matter sector is composed of two fermions: one at PeV scale and the other at TeV scale such that the heavier one can decay into the lighter one and two neutrinos. We include a pair of real scalar triplets $\Omega_{L,R}$ which provide a resonant s-channel annihilation of the heavier dark matter in order to obtain the correct relic abundance without violating the unitarity bound on dark matter mass. Another scalar field, a bitriplet under left-right gauge group is added to assist the heavier dark matter decay. We also show, how such an extended LRSM can be incorporated within a non-supersymmetric $SO(10)$ model where the gauge coupling unification at a very high scale naturally accommodate a PeV scale intermediate symmetry, required to explain the PeV events at IceCube.
We revisit nonsingular cosmologies in which the limiting curvature hypothesis is realized. We study the cosmological perturbations of the theory and determine the general criteria for stability. For the simplest model, we find generic Ostrogradski instabilities unless the action contains the Weyl tensor squared with the appropriate coefficient. When considering two specific nonsingular cosmological scenarios(one inflationary and one genesis model), we find ghost and gradient instabilities throughout most of the cosmic evolution. Furthermore, we show that the theory is equivalent to a theory of gravity where the action is a general function of the Ricci and Gauss-Bonnet scalars, and this type of theory is known to suffer from instabilities in anisotropic backgrounds. This leads us to construct a new type of curvature invariant scalar function. We show that it does not have Ostrogradski instabilities, and it avoids ghost and gradient instabilities for most of the interesting background inflationary and genesis trajectories. We further show that it does not possess additional new degrees of freedom in an anisotropic spacetime. This opens the door for studying stable alternative nonsingular very early universe cosmologies.
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