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Anish Ghoshal

Publications and source records attributed to Anish Ghoshal.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

Distinct signatures of spinning PBH domination and evaporation: doubly peaked gravitational waves, dark relics and CMB complementarity

Ultra-low mass primordial black holes (PBH), which may briefly dominate the energy density of the universe but completely evaporate before the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), can lead to interesting observable signatures. In our previous work, we studied the generation of a doubly peaked spectrum of induced stochastic gravitational wave background (ISGWB) for such a scenario and explored the possibility of probing a class of baryogenesis models wherein the emission of massive unstable particles from the PBH evaporation and their subsequent decay contributes to the matter-antimatter asymmetry. In this work, we extend the scope of our earlier work by including spinning PBHs and consider the emission of light relativistic dark sector particles, which contribute to the dark radiation (DR) and massive stable dark sector particles, thereby accounting for the dark matter (DM) component of the universe. The ISGWB can probe the non-thermal production of these heavy DM particles, which cannot be accessible in laboratory searches. For the case of DR, we find a novel complementarity between the measurements of $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ from these emitted particles and the ISGWB from PBH domination. Our results indicate that the ISGWB has a weak dependence on the initial PBH spin. However, for gravitons as the DR particles, the initial PBH spin plays a significant role, and only above a critical value of the initial spin parameter $a_*$, which depends only on initial PBH mass, the graviton emission can be probed in the CMB-HD experiment. Upcoming CMB experiments such as CMB-HD and CMB-Bharat, together with future GW detectors like LISA and ET, open up an exciting possibility of constraining the PBHs parameter space providing deeper insights into the expansion history of the universe between the end of inflation and BBN.

astro-ph.CO↗

Inflation and primordial gravitational waves in scale-invariant quadratic gravity with Higgs

In scale-invariant models of fundamental physics all mass scales are generated via spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this work, we study inflation in scale-invariant quadratic gravity, in which the Planck mass is generated classically by a scalar field, which evolves from an unstable fixed point to a stable one thus breaking scale-invariance. We investigate the dynamics by means of dynamical system standard techniques. By computing the spectral indices and comparing them with data, we put some constraints on the three dimensionless parameters of the theory. We show that certain regions of the parameter space will be within the range of future CMB missions like CMB-S4, LiteBIRD and STPol. The second half of the paper is dedicated to the analysis of inflationary first-order tensor perturbations and the calculation of the power spectrum of the gravitational waves. We comment on our results and compare them with the ones of mixed Starobinsky-Higgs inflation.

gr-qc↗

Confining complex ghost degrees of freedom

We show a theorem proving that a non-local bosonic field upon a covariant interaction with a confining gauge field undergoes the confinement of its degrees of freedom present in the free theory changing completely the physical mass spectrum following Kugo-Ojima criterion. This is applicable to an infinite number of excitations of the bosonic field including ghosts whereas we pay special attention to the modes with the complex conjugate masses, states appearing in the string field theory motivated infinite-derivative models. The same recipe will obviously work for the Lee-Wick models.

hep-th↗

Scale-invariant inflation

We examine a scalar-tensor model of gravity that is globally scale-invariant. When adapted to a spatially flat Robertson-Walker metric, the equations of motion describe a dynamical system that flows from an unstable de Sitter space to a stable one. We show that during this transition inflation can occur. Moreover, at the final fixed point, a mass scale naturally emerges that can be identified with the Planck mass. We compute the inflationary spectral indices and the tensor perturbation and we compare them with observations. We also study the possibility that primordial magnetic fields are generated during inflation.

gr-qc↗

Listening to dark sirens from gravitational waves:\it{Combined effects of fifth force, ultralight particle radiation, and eccentricity}

We derive in detail the orbital period loss of a compact binary system in presence of a fifth force and radiation of ultralight particles for a general eccentric Keplerian orbit. We obtain constraints on fifth force strength $α\lesssim 1.11\times 10^{-3}$ from the orbital period decay of compact binary systems. We derive constraints on the gauge coupling of ultralight scalar $(g_S\lesssim 3.06\times 10^{-20})$ and vector $(g_V\lesssim 2.29\times 10^{-20})$ particles from orbital period loss and the constraints get stronger in presence of a fifth force $(α=0.9)$. In addition, we also obtain constraints on the axion decay constant $(7.94\times 10^{10}~\rm{GeV}\lesssim f_a\lesssim 3.16\times 10^{17}~\rm{GeV}, α=0.9)$ if the orbital period decays due to the combined effects of axionic fifth force and axion radiation. We also achieve constraints on the strengths of the fifth force $(α\lesssim 0.025)$ and radiation $(β\lesssim 10^{-3})$ from GW170817. The constraints on new force parameters depend on the choice of the initial eccentricity which we include in our analysis $(ε_0=10^{-6}, 0.1)$. We do the model independent estimate of the capture of dark matter mass fraction by a binary system. Lastly, we obtain constraints on fifth force strength due to Brans-Dicke mediated scalar between two compact stars in a binary system $(ω_{\rm{BD}}>266)$ and from the Nordtvedt effect $(ω_{\rm{BD}}>75858)$. The bound on Brans-Dicke coupling gets stronger if one includes the effect of eccentricity. Our constraints can be generalized to any alternative theories of gravity and will be within the reach of second and third generation gravitational wave detectors.

hep-ph↗

Type III seesaw with R-parity violation in light of $m_W$ (CDF)

Motivated by the recently reported measurement of the $W$ boson mass $M_W = 80.4335 \pm 0.0094$ GeV by the CDF collaboration, we propose a type III seesaw extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) which also includes an R-parity violating term. Without taking potential SUSY radiative corrections into account, we show that the CDF measurement of $M_W$ and the LEP measurement of the $ρ$ parameter can be simultaneously accommodated at the $2 σ$ level. A long-lived gravitino in a few GeV mass range is a unique viable dark matter candidate in this framework.

hep-ph↗

Generalising Axion-like particle as the curvaton: sourcing primordial density perturbation and non-Gaussianities

We investigate the non-perturbatively generated axion-like particle (ALP) potential, involving fermions in the dark sector that couple to the ALP, in an early cosmological inflationary stage with the ALP being a spectator field. The potential here deviates from the standard cosine nature due to the presence of the two fermion masses $m_u$ and $m_d$ which couple to the ALP. The ALP is a spectator field during inflation but it starts to oscillate and dominates the energy density of the universe after inflation ends, thereby sourcing isocurvature perturbations, while standard curvature fluctuations form the inflaton are assumed to be sub-dominant. Subsequently the ALP decays converting the isocurvature perturbations to adiabatic perturbations thereby acting as the origin of the primordial density perturbations. We identify the parameter space involving the axion decay constant $f_a$, scale of confinement $Λ$, ALP mass $m$ and the masses of the fermions, $m_u$ and $m_d$ where it can satisfactorily behave as the curvaton and source the observed primordial density perturbation. We also predict local non-Gaussianity signals for bi-spectrum and tri-spectrum $f_{NL}$ and $g_{NL}$, as a function of the ratio $m_u/m_d$, which are within the allowed range in the latest Planck observations and are detectable with future observations. Particularly we observed that the value of $f_{NL}$ and $g_{NL}$ are dependent on the ratio of $m_u$ and $m_d$: $f_{NL}$ is more or less positive for all scenarios except $m_u = m_d$ and $g_{NL}$ is always positive irrespective of the ratio between $m_u$ and $m_d$. The results of our analysis in the limit $m_u = m_d$ resembles vanilla curvaton scenario while in the limit $m_u \gg m_d$ resembles pure axion cosine potential.

hep-ph↗

Near-inflection point inflation and production of dark matter during reheating

We study slow roll single field inflationary scenario and the production of non-thermal fermionic dark matter, together with standard model Higgs, during reheating. For the inflationary scenario, we have considered two models of polynomial potential - one is symmetric about the origin and another one is not. We fix the coefficients of the potential from the current Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data from Planck/Bicep. Next, we explore the allowed parameter space on the coupling $(y_χ)$ with inflaton and mass $(m_χ)$ of dark matter (DM) particles $(χ)$ produced during reheating and satisfying CMB and several other cosmological constraints.

astro-ph.CO↗

Minimal Leptogenesis in Brane-inspired Cosmology

We discuss how a post inflationary reheating phase characterized by a nonstandard multiple scalar field cosmology can change the thermal history of the universe, affecting minimal high scale leptogenesis. In particular, we explore a class of models where a set of scalar fields in a brane-inspired dynamical scenario modifies the Boltzmann equations concerning standard leptogenesis. The produced lepton asymmetry, due to the decays of heavy Majorana right-handed neutrinos responsible for generating Standard Model neutrino masses via the type-I seesaw, is affected as well.

hep-ph↗

Quintessence Dark Energy from strongly-coupled Higgs mass gap: Local and Non-local higher-derivative non-perturbative scenarios

We entertain the possibility that dark energy arises from the Higgs field of quintessence type in the non-perturbative regimes. For this purpose we utilize a set of exact solutions of Higgs field theory recently devised, in terms of Jacobi elliptical function for a massless quartic scalar field, that satisfy a massive dispersion relation. In certain regions of the parameter space, determined by the quartic coupling value, we show that such solutions have the property to give the correct behavior for the equation of state of the dark energy depending on the initial $θ$ value of periodicity of the Jacobi elliptical function solution. It is seen that on a time scale determined by the Hubble constant and the strength of the self-interaction of the scalar field, when conformal invariance is restored, the equation of state for the dark energy becomes manifest. Further we investigate scenarios within standard field theory framework and also extending to higher-derivative theories, namely infinite-derivative theory, motivated from p-adic string field theory, and Lee-Wick theories and in all cases, we find suitable choices of the parameter space leads to dark energy behavior of the Higgs field, which we compare.

hep-th↗

Gravitational Wave Pathway to Testable Leptogenesis

We analyze the classically scale-invariant $B-L$ model in the context of resonant leptogenesis with the recently proposed mass-gain mechanism. The $B-L$ symmetry breaking in this scenario is associated with a strong first order phase transition that gives rise to detectable gravitational waves (GWs) via bubble collisions. The same $B-L$ symmetry breaking also gives Majorana mass to right-handed neutrinos inside the bubbles, and their out of equilibrium decays can produce the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe via leptogenesis. We show that the current LIGO-VIRGO limit on stochastic GW background already excludes part of the $B-L$ parameter space, complementary to the collider searches for heavy $Z^{\prime}$ resonances. Moreover, future GW experiments like Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer can effectively probe the parameter space of leptogenesis over a wide range of the $B-L$ symmetry-breaking scales and gauge coupling values.

hep-ph↗

Radiative Plateau Inflation with Conformal Invariance: Dynamical Generation of Electroweak and Seesaw Scales

We investigate a scale-invariant $B-L$ scenario where the Standard Model (SM) is supplemented with a dark scalar $ϕ$ which has gauge \& Yukawa interactions, with the couplings $g_{BL}$ and $y$, respectively, leading to radiative plateau inflation at scale $ϕ=M$ in the ultraviolet (UV), while dynamically generating the Electroweak and Seesaw scales \textit{á lá} Coleman-Weinberg in the infrared (IR). This is particularly achieved by implementing threshold corrections at an energy scale $μ_T$ arising due to the presence of vector-like fermions. We show that implementing the inflationary observables makes the couplings solely dependent on the plateau scale $M$, leaving us with only two independent parameters $M$ and $μ_T$. Within the theoretically consistent parameter space defined by $m_{Z_{BL}} > 850~\rm GeV$, from the assumption of independent evolution of the dark sector couplings from the SM couplings and $M < 5.67~M_P$ required for the realisation of inflationary \textit{plateau-like} behaviour of the potential around $ϕ=M$, where $M_P=2.4\times10^{18}$ GeV is the reduced Planck mass, we identify the parameter space that is excluded by the current LHC results from the search for the heavy $Z_{BL}$ boson. For typical benchmark points in the viable parameter regions, we estimate the reheating temperature to be $\mathcal{O}(TeV)$ thus consistent with the standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) constraints. For typical benchmark points ($M=5.67,~1,~0.1~M_P$) we predict the scales of inflation to be $\mathcal{H}_{inf}=2.79\times10^{12}$ GeV, $1.53\times10^{10}$ GeV and $1.53\times10^7$ GeV, respectively.

hep-ph↗

eV Hubble Scale Inflation with Radiative Plateau: Very light Inflaton, Reheating & Dark Matter in B-L Extensions

We study radiative plateau-like inflation \& Z$_{BL}$-portal freeze-in fermionic dark matter (DM) in a minimal B-L extended model. The U(1)$_{B-L}$ Higgs, responsible for heavy neutrino masses, also drives inflation in the early universe, thanks to radiative corrections from the heavy neutrinos \& the Z$_{BL}$ gauge boson. In our benchmark choice for the U(1)$_{B-L}$ gauge coupling $g_{B-L}\sim10^{-4}$, a light Z$_{BL}$ boson can be explored by current and future lifetime frontier experiments, such as FASER and FASER 2 at the LHC, SHiP, Belle II and LHCb. For the benchmark, the Hubble scale of inflation ($\mathcal{H}_{inf}$) is very low ($\mathcal{H}_{inf} = \mathcal{O}(100)$ eV) \& the inflaton turns out to be very light with mass of $\mathcal{O}(1)$ eV, and consequently the decay width of inflaton is extremely small. We investigate a 2-field system with the inflaton/B-L Higgs and the Standard Model (SM) Higgs, and find that the reheating with a suffuciently high temperature occurs when the water-fall direction to the SM Higgs direction opens up in the trajectory of the scalar field evolution.

hep-ph↗

Probing pre-BBN era with Scale Invariant FIMP

Detecting dark matter (DM) relic via freeze-in is difficult in laboratories due to smallness of the couplings involved. However, a non-standard cosmological history of the Universe, prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), can dramatically change this scenario. In this context, we study the freeze-in production of dark matter in classically scale invariant $U(1)_X$ gauge extension of the Standard Model (SM), recently dubbed as the \textit{Scale Invariant FIMP Miracle}. We assume an additional species dominates the energy density of the Universe at early times, causing the expansion rate at a given temperature to be larger than that in the standard radiation-dominated case. We find, the \textit{out-of-equilibrium} scattering processes involving particles in the thermal bath lead to significantly suppressed DM production in this era, thereby enhancing the couplings between the visible and the dark sector (by several orders of magnitude) to satisfy the observed DM abundance, and improving the detection prospects for freeze-in in turn. Scale invariance of the underlying theory leaves only four free parameters in the model: the DM mass $m_X$, the gauge coupling $g_X$, the temperature of transition $T_R$ from early scalar-dominated to radiation-dominated era and the power-law dependence $n$ of this temperature. We show, within this minimal set-up, experiments like FASER, MATHUSLA, DUNE, SHiP will be probing various cosmological models depending on the choice of $\{n,\,T_R\}$ that also satisfy the PLANCK observed relic density bound. Moreover, due to the presence of a naturally light scalar mediator, the direct detection of the DM at XENON1T, PandaX-4T or XENONnT becomes relevant for Higgs-scalar mixing $\sinθ\simeq\{10^{-5}-10^{-3}\}$, thus providing complementary probes for freeze-in, as well as for non-standard cosmological pre-BBN era.

hep-ph↗

Quark confinement in QCD in the 't Hooft limit

We treat quantum chromodynamics (QCD) using a set of Dyson-Schwinger equations derived, in differential form, with the Bender-Milton-Savage technique. In this way, we are able to derive the low energy limit that assumes the form of a non-local Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. The corresponding gap equation is then studied to show that such a model has no free quarks in the low-energy limit.

hep-ph↗

Signatures of Non-thermal Dark Matter with Kination and Early Matter Domination: Gravitational Waves versus Laboratory Searches

The non-thermal production of dark matter (DM) usually requires very tiny couplings of the dark sector with the visible sector and therefore is notoriously challenging to hunt in laboratory experiments. Here we propose a novel pathway to test such a production in the context of a non-standard cosmological history, using both gravitational wave (GW) and laboratory searches. We investigate the formation of DM from the decay of a scalar field that we dub as the reheaton, as it also reheats the Universe when it decays. We consider the possibility that the Universe undergoes a phase %of kination with \textit{kination-like} stiff equation-of-state ($w_{\rm kin}>1/3$) before the reheaton dominates the energy density of the Universe and eventually decays into Standard Model and DM particles. We then study how first-order tensor perturbations generated during inflation, the amplitude of which may get amplified during the kination era and lead to detectable GW signals. Demanding that the reheaton produces the observed DM relic density, we show that the reheaton's lifetime and branching fractions are dictated by the cosmological scenario. In particular, we show that it is long-lived and can be searched by various experiments such as DUNE, FASER, FASER-II, MATHUSLA, SHiP, etc. We also identify the parameter space which leads to complementary observables for GW detectors such as LISA and u-DECIGO. In particular we find that a kination-like period with an equation-of-state parameter $w_{\rm kin}\approx 0.5$ and a reheaton mass $\mathcal O(0.5-5)$ GeV and a DM mass of $\mathcal O (10-100)$ keV may lead to sizeable imprints in both kinds of searches.

hep-ph↗

Inflection-point Inflation and Dark Matter Redux

We investigate for viable models of inflation that can successfully produce dark matter (DM) from inflaton decay process, satisfying all the constraints from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and from some other observations. In particular, we analyze near-inflection-point small field inflationary scenario with non-thermal production of fermionic DM from the decaying inflaton field during the reheating era. To this end, we propose two different models of inflation with polynomial potential. The potential of Model I contains terms proportional to linear, quadratic, and quartic in inflaton; whereas in Model II, the potential contains only even power of inflaton and the highest term is sextic in inflaton. For both the models, we find out possible constraints on the model parameters which lead to proper inflationary parameters from CMB data with a very small tensor-to-scalar ratio, as expected from a small-field model. With the allowed parameter space from CMB, we then search for satisfactory relic abundance for DM, that can be produced from inflaton via reheating, to match with the present-day cold dark matter (CDM) relic density for the parameter spaces of the DM $χ$ mass and Yukawa couplings in the range $10^{-9} \gtrsim y_χ \gtrsim 10^{-15}$ and $10^3 \text{GeV} \lesssim m_χ \lesssim 10^9 \text{GeV}$. The DM relic is associated with the inflection-points in each model via maximum temperature reached in the early universe during its production. Finally, we find out allowed parameter space coming out of combined constraints from stability analysis for both SM Higgs and DM decays from inflaton as well as from BBN and Lyman-$α$ bounds.

hep-ph↗

Fate of the false vacuum in string-inspired nonlocal field theory

In this article, we study Coleman bounce in weakly nonlocal theories which are motivated from string field theory. The kinetic term is extended via an infinite series of high-order derivatives, which comes into play at an energy scale $M$, without introducing any new states or ghosts in the mass spectrum. We calculate the bubble nucleation in thin-wall approximation, treating the system in semi-classical manner. We find that the effect of nonlocal scale $M$ in the theory is to suppress the vacuum tunneling rate from false to true vacuum compared to the standard local bouncing scenario. Likewise, we show that as we move further away from the bubble wall, the effects of nonlocality gets reduced and this suppression is significant only around the wall of the nucleated bubble. From our investigations, we conclude that the main effect is due to the fact that the nonlocality smears the solution of the local bubble profile. However, the energy of the bubble wall remains unaffected by the microscopic nonlocal behavior of the theory in the thin-wall approximation. We also discuss the cases for Lee-Wick theories and applications of our result to cosmology.

hep-ph↗