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Alessio Notari

Publications and source records attributed to Alessio Notari.

66 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2009

Local Void vs Dark Energy: Confrontation with WMAP and Type Ia Supernovae

It is now a known fact that if we happen to be living in the middle of a large underdense region, then we will observe an "apparent acceleration", even when any form of dark energy is absent. In this paper, we present a "Minimal Void" scenario, i.e. a "void" with minimal underdensity contrast (of about -0.4) and radius (~ 200-250 Mpc/h) that can, not only explain the supernovae data, but also be consistent with the 3-yr WMAP data. We also discuss consistency of our model with various other measurements such as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and local measurements of the Hubble parameter, and also point out possible observable signatures.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

"Swiss-Cheese" Inhomogeneous Cosmology & the Dark Energy Problem

We study an exact swiss-cheese model of the Universe, where inhomogeneous LTB patches are embedded in a flat FLRW background, in order to see how observations of distant sources are affected. We find negligible integrated effect, suppressed by (L/R_{H})^3 (where L is the size of one patch, and R_{H} is the Hubble radius), both perturbatively and non-perturbatively. We disentangle this effect from the Doppler term (which is much larger and has been used recently \cite{BMN} to try to fit the SN curve without dark energy) by making contact with cosmological perturbation theory.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2006

Nonlinear Structure Formation and "Apparent" Acceleration: an Investigation

We present an analytically solvable nonlinear model of structure formation in a Universe with only dust. The model is an LTB solution (of General Relativity) and structures are shells of different density. We show that the luminosity distance-redshift relation has significant corrections at low redshift when the density contrast becomes nonlinear. A minimal effect is a correction in apparent magnitudes of order 0.15. We discuss different possibilities that could further enhance this effect and mimick Dark Energy.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2006

Can Inflation solve the Hierarchy Problem?

Inflation with tunneling from a false to a true vacuum becomes viable in the presence of a scalar field that slows down the initial de Sitter phase. As a by-product this field also sets dynamically the value of the Newton constant observed today. This can be very large if the tunneling rate (which is exponentially sensitive to the barrier) is small enough. Therefore along with Inflation we also provide a natural dynamical explanation for why gravity is so weak today. Moreover we predict a spectrum of gravity waves peaked at around 0.1 mHz, that will be detectable by the planned space inteferometer LISA. Finally we discuss interesting predictions on cosmological scalar and tensor fluctuations in the light the WMAP 3-year data.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2006

"Graceful" Old Inflation

We show that Inflation in a False Vacuum becomes viable in the presence of a spectator scalar field non minimally coupled to gravity. The field is unstable in this background, it grows exponentially and slows down the pure de Sitter phase itself, allowing then fast tunneling to a true vacuum. We compute the constraint from graceful exit through bubble nucleation and the spectrum of cosmological perturbations.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2005

Cosmological influence of super-Hubble perturbations

The existence of cosmological perturbations of wavelength larger than the Hubble radius is a generic prediction of the inflationary paradigm. We provide the derivation beyond perturbation theory of a conserved quantity which generalizes the linear comoving curvature perturbation. As a by-product, we show that super-Hubble-radius (super-Hubble) perturbations have no physical influence on local observables e.g., the local expansion rate) if cosmological perturbations are of the adiabatic type.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2005

Late time failure of Friedmann equation

It is widely believed that the assumption of homogeneity is a good zero{\it th} order approximation for the expansion of our Universe. We analyze the correction due to subhorizon inhomogeneous gravitational fields. While at early times this contribution (which may act as a negative pressure component) is perturbatively subdominant, we show that the perturbative series is likely to diverge at redshift of order 1, due to the growth of perturbations. So, the homogeneous Friedmann equation can not be trusted at late times. We suggest that the puzzling observations of a present acceleration of the Universe, may just be due to the unjustified use of the Friedmann equation and not to the presence of a Dark Energy component. This would completely solve the coincidence problem.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2005

Effect of inhomogeneities on the expansion rate of the Universe

While the expansion rate of a homogeneous isotropic Universe is simply proportional to the square-root of the energy density, the expansion rate of an inhomogeneous Universe also depends on the nature of the density inhomogeneities. In this paper we calculate to second order in perturbation variables the expansion rate of an inhomogeneous Universe and demonstrate corrections to the evolution of the expansion rate. While we find that the mean correction is small, the variance of the correction on the scale of the Hubble radius is sensitive to the physical significance of the unknown spectrum of density perturbations beyond the Hubble radius.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2004

Single Field Baryogenesis and the Scale of Inflation

In the context of inflationary cosmology, we discuss a minimal baryogenesis scenario in which the resulting baryon to entropy ratio is determined by the amplitude of the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. The model involves a new $SU(2)_L$ scalar field which generates a Dirac neutrino mass and which is excited by quantum fluctuations during inflation, yielding a CP-violating phase. During the scalar field decay after inflation, an asymmetry in the left-handed neutrino number is generated, which then converts to a net baryon asymmetry via sphalerons. A lower limit on the expected initial value of the scalar field translates to a lower limit on the baryon to entropy ratio (which also depends on the Dirac neutrino Yukawa coupling). Consistency with the limits on baryonic isocurvature perturbations requires that the spectral index of adiabatic perturbations produced during inflation be very close to unity. In a variant of our scenario in which the scalar is a gauge singlet, the connection between the baryon to entropy ratio and the inflationary scale is lost, although the basic mechanism of baryogenesis remains applicable.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2004

Constraints on neutrino masses from leptogenesis models

Upper bounds on the CP asymmetry relevant for leptogenesis are reexamined and found weaker than in previous literature, both for hierarchical and for quasi-degenerate right-handed neutrinos. Successful leptogenesis implies the usual lower bound on right-handed neutrino masses, and an upper bound on left-handed neutrino masses (which we obtain to be 0.15eV at 3sigma) only if right-handed neutrinos are assumed to be much more hierarchical than left-handed neutrinos. Otherwise both bounds can be considerably relaxed. The constraint on light neutrino masses varies assuming different interpretations of why neutrinos should be quasi-degenerate. With conservative assumptions, we find that a mild quasi-degeneracy allows neutrinos heavier than an eV compatibly with leptogenesis. We also extend computations of thermal leptogenesis to an alternative model of neutrino mass mediated by fermion triplets which was never considered so far for leptogenesis. Leptogenesis can be successful despite the effect of gauge interactions, resulting in only slightly stronger constraints on neutrino masses.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2003

On the reheating stage after inflation

We point out that inflaton decay products acquire plasma masses during the reheating phase following inflation. The plasma masses may render inflaton decay kinematicaly forbidden, causing the temperature to remain frozen for a period at a plateau value. We show that the final reheating temperature may be uniquely determined by the inflaton mass, and may not depend on its coupling. Our findings have important implications for the thermal production of dangerous relics during reheating (e.g., gravitinos), for extracting bounds on particle physics models of inflation from Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy data, for the production of massive dark matter candidates during reheating, and for models of baryogenesis or leptogensis where massive particles are produced during reheating.

hep-ph↗