arXiv subjects

Ariel R. Zhitnitsky

Publications and source records attributed to Ariel R. Zhitnitsky.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

Cosmological Magnetic Field and Dark Energy as two sides of the same coin

It has been recently argued \cite{Barvinsky:2017lfl} that the de Sitter phase in cosmology might be naturally generated as a result of dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in a strongly coupled QCD-like gauge theory in expanding universe. It is known that the de Sitter phase is realized in the history of our Universe twice: the first occurrence is coined as the inflation, while the second time (which is occurring now) is dubbed as the dark energy (DE). The crucial element of the proposal \cite{Barvinsky:2017lfl} is the presence of a nontrivial gauge holonomy which is the source of the vacuum energy leading to the de Sitter behaviour. It has been also argued that the anomalous coupling of the system with the Standard Model (SM) particles leads to the reheating epoch in case of the {\it inflationary} phase. A similar anomalous coupling of the system with the Maxwell $E\&M$ field during the {\it DE epoch} generates the cosmological magnetic field. The intensity of the field is estimated on the level of $10^{-10}$G while the corresponding correlation length reaches the scale of the visible Universe.

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arXiv2019

Primordial Lithium Puzzle and the Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter Model

Astrophysics today faces a number of mysteries which defiant their resolutions in spite of drastic improvements in instrumental design, better technique being developed, and gradual improvements in theoretical and computation methods over last decades. Primordial Lithium Puzzle is known to stay with us for at least two decades, and it is very likely that its final resolution will require some fundamentally new ideas, novel frameworks and a non-conventional paradigms. We propose that Primordial Lithium Puzzle finds its natural resolution within the so-called Axion Quark Nugget (AQN) dark matter model. This model was invented long ago as a natural explanation of the observed ratio $Ω_{\rm dark} \sim Ω_{\rm visible}$ without any references to BBN physics. In this new paradigm, in contrast with conventional WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) framework the dark matter (DM) takes the form of the macroscopically large quark nuggets without requiring any new fields beyond the standard model physics, except for the axion. The time evolution of these AQNs in primordial soup at $T\sim 20$ KeV suggests a strong suppression of the abundances of nuclei with high charges $Z\geq 3$. This suppression mechanism represents the resolution of the primordial lithium abundance within AQN dark matter scenario.

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arXiv2018

Topological Inflation

We discuss a novel scenario for early cosmology, when the inflationary quasi-de Sitter phase dynamically originates from the initial quantum state represented by the microcanonical density matrix. This genuine quantum effect occurs as a result of the dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in a (conjectured) strongly coupled QCD-like gauge theory in expanding universe. The crucial element of our proposal is the presence in our framework of a nontrivial $\mathbb{S}^1$ which plays the dual role in construction: it defines the periodic gravitational instanton (on the gravity side) and it also defines a nontrivial gauge holonomy (on the gauge side) generating the vacuum energy. The effect is global in nature and cannot be formulated in terms of a gradient expansion in an effective local field theory. We also discuss a graceful exit from holonomy inflation due to the helical instability. The number of e-folds in the holonomy inflation framework is determined by the gauge coupling constant at the moment of inflation, and estimated as $N_{\rm infl}\sim α^{-2}(H_0)\sim 10^2$. We also comment on the relation of our framework with the no-boundary and tunneling cosmological proposals and their recent criticism.

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arXiv2017

Oblique Confinement at $θ\neq 0$ in weakly coupled gauge theories with deformations

The main focus of this work is to test the ideas related to the oblique confinement in a theoretically controllable manner using the "deformed QCD" as a toy model. We explicitly show that the oblique confinement in the weakly coupled gauge theories emerges as a result of condensation of $N$ types of monopoles shifted by the phase $\exp(i\frac{θ+2πm}{N})$ in Bloch type construction. It should be contrasted with conventional and commonly accepted viewpoint that the confinement at $θ\neq 0$ is due to the condensation of the electrically charged dyons which indeed normally emerge in the systems with $θ\neq 0$ as a result of Witten's effect. We explain the basic reason why the "dyon" mechanism does not materialize-- it is because the Witten's effect holds for a static magnetic monopole treated as an external source. It should be contrasted with our case when $N$- types of monopoles are not static, but rather the dynamical degrees of freedom which fluctuate and themselves determine the ground state of the system.

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arXiv2017

Topological Casimir effect in a quantum LC circuit: real-time dynamics

We study novel contributions to the partition function of the Maxwell system defined on a small compact manifold ${\mathbb{M}}$ with nontrivial mappings $π_1[U(1)]\cong\mathbb{Z}$. These contributions cannot be described in terms of conventional physical propagating photons with two transverse polarizations, and instead emerge as a result of tunneling transitions between topologically different but physically identical vacuum winding states.\exclude{These new terms give an extra contribution to the Casimir pressure, yet to be measured.} We argue that if the same system is considered in the background of a small external time-dependent E\&M field, then real physical photons will be emitted from the vacuum, similar to the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) where photons are radiated from the vacuum due to time-dependent boundary conditions. The fundamental technical difficulty for such an analysis is that the radiation of physical photons on mass shell is inherently a real-time Minkowskian phenomenon while the vacuum fluctuations interpolating between topological $|k\rangle$ sectors rest upon a Euclidean instanton formulation. We overcome this obstacle by introducing auxiliary topological fields which allows for a simple analytical continuation between Minkowski and Euclidean descriptions, and develop a quantum mechanical technique to compute these effects. We also propose an experimental realization of such small effects using a microwave cavity with appropriate boundary conditions. Finally, we comment on the possible cosmological implications of this effect.

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arXiv2016

Quark Nugget Dark Matter: No contradictions with neutrino flux constraints

It has recently been claimed that dark matter in form of quark nuggets cannot account for more than 20% of the dark matter density. This claim is based on constraints on the neutrino flux in 20-50 MeV range where the sensitivity of underground neutrino detectors such as Super-Kamiokande have their highest signal-to-noise ratio. We argue that this claim depends crucially on the assumption that the annihilation of visible baryons with an antiquark nugget will generate a neutrino spectrum similar to the conventional baryon-antibaryon annihilation spectrum in vacuum. However, this assumption does not hold for the nuggets in a colour superconducting phase where the lightest pseudo Goldstone mesons (the pions and Kaons) have masses in the 20 MeV range, in contrast with conventional pion mass of roughly 140 MeV. Thus, the decay of these light pseudo Goldstone bosons of the CS phase cannot produce highly energetic neutrinos in the 20-50 MeV energy range.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Aharonov-Bohm phases in a quantum LC circuit

We study novel types of contributions to the partition function of the Maxwell system defined on a small compact manifold. These contributions, often not addressed in the perturbative treatment with physical photons, emerge as a result of tunneling transitions between topologically distinct but physically identical vacuum winding states. These new terms give an extra contribution to the Casimir pressure, yet to be measured. We argue that this effect is highly sensitive to a small external electric field, which should be contrasted with the conventional Casimir effect where the vacuum photons are essentially unaffected by any external field. Furthermore, photons will be emitted from the vacuum in response to a time-dependent electric field, similar to the dynamical Casimir effect in which real particles are radiated from the vacuum due to the time-dependent boundary conditions. We also propose an experimental setup using a quantum LC circuit to detect this novel effect. We expect physical electric charges to appear on the capacitor plates when the system dimension is such that coherent Aharonov-Bohm phases can be maintained over macroscopically large distances.

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arXiv2015

Dynamical de Sitter phase and nontrivial holonomy in strongly coupled gauge theories in expanding Universe

We discuss a new scenario for early cosmology when the inflationary de Sitter phase emerges dynamically. This genuine quantum effect occurs as a result of dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in a strongly coupled QCD- like gauge theory in an expanding universe. We test these ideas by explicit computations in hyperbolic space $ \mathbb{H}^3_κ\times \mathbb{S}^1_{κ^{-1}}$. We argue that the key element for this idea to work is the presence of nontrivial holonomy computed along $\mathbb{S}^1_{κ^{-1}}$. The effect is non-local in nature, non-analytical in coupling constant and can not be described in terms of any local propagating degree of freedom such as scalar inflaton field $Φ(x)$. We discuss some profound phenomenological consequences of this scenario for inflationary cosmology. We also suggest to test these ideas in a tabletop experiment by measuring some specific corrections to the Casimir pressure in the Maxwell theory formulated on a topologically nontrivial manifold.

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arXiv2015

Dynamical Casimir Effect in a small compact manifold for the Maxwell vacuum

We study novel type of contributions to the partition function of the Maxwell system defined on a small compact manifold ${\mathbb{M}}$ such as torus. These new terms can not be described in terms of the physical propagating photons with two transverse polarizations. Rather, these novel contributions emerge as a result of tunnelling events when transitions occur between topologically different but physically identical vacuum winding states. These new terms give an extra contribution to the Casimir pressure, yet to be measured. We argue that if the same system is considered in the background of a small external time-dependent magnetic field, than there will be emission of photons from the vacuum, similar to the Dynamical Casimir Effect (DCE) when real particles are radiated from the vacuum due to the time-dependent boundary conditions. The difference with conventional DCE is that the dynamics of the vacuum in our system is not related to the fluctuations of the conventional degrees of freedom, the virtual photons. Rather, the radiation in our case occurs as a result of tunnelling events between topologically different but physically identical $|k>$ sectors in a time -dependent background. We comment on relation of this novel effect with the well-known, experimentally observed, and theoretically understood phenomena of the persistent currents in normal metal rings. We also comment on possible cosmological applications of this effect.

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arXiv2014

Metastable vacuum decay and $θ$ dependence in gauge theory. Deformed QCD as a toy model

We study a number of different ingredients related to the $θ$ dependence, metastable excited vacuum states and other related subjects using a simplified version of QCD, the so-called "deformed QCD". This model is a weakly coupled gauge theory, which however preserves all the relevant essential elements allowing us to study hard and nontrivial features which are known to be present in real strongly coupled QCD. Our main focus in this work is to test the ideas related to the metastable vacuum states (which are known to be present in strongly coupled QCD in large $N$ limit) in a theoretically controllable manner using the "deformed QCD" as a toy model. We explicitly show how the metastable states emerge in the system, why their life time is large, and why these metastable states must be present in the system for the self-consistency of the entire picture of the QCD vacuum. We also speculate on possible relevance of the metastable vacuum states in explanation of the violation of local $\cal{P}$ and $\cal{CP}$ symmetries in heavy ion collisions.

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arXiv2014

The topological long range order in QCD. Applications to heavy ion collisions and cosmology

We argue that the local violation of P invariance in heavy ion collisions is a consequence of the long range topological order which is inherent feature of strongly coupled QCD. A similar phenomenon is known to occur in some topologically ordered condensed matter systems with a gap. We also discuss possible cosmological applications of this long range order in strongly coupled gauge theories. In particular, we argue that the de Sitter behaviour might be dynamically generated as a result of the long range order. In this framework the inflaton is an auxiliary field which effectively describes the dynamics of topological sectors in a gauge theory in the expanding universe, rather than a new dynamical degree of freedom.

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arXiv2014

Cosmological perturbations in \bar{QCD}- inflation. Estimates confronting the observations, including BICEP2

We discuss a new scenario for early cosmology, when inflationary de Sitter phase dynamically emergent. This genuine quantum effect occurs as a result of dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in a (conjectured) strongly coupled QCD- like gauge theory with scale ${Λ_{\overline{\mathrm{QCD}}}} \sim 10^{17} $ GeV in expanding universe. Inflaton in this ${\overline{\mathrm{QCD}}}$- inflation framework is an auxiliary non-propagating field, similar to an effective field known to emerge in topologically ordered condensed matter systems. Number of e-folds in the ${\overline{\mathrm{QCD}}}$-inflation framework is determined by the gauge coupling constant at the moment of inflation, and estimated as $N_{\rm inf}\sim α^{-2}(H_0)\sim 10^2$. We analyze the equation of state in this framework at the end of inflation in terms of the gauge dynamics and confront our estimates with observations. We make predictions for the tensor tilt, $n_t \simeq -0.02$, the running of the tensor tilt $α_t= {\partial n_t}/{\partial \ln k}\sim α^4(H_0)\sim 10^{-4}$ and the running for the spectral index $α_s= {\partial n_s}/{\partial \ln k}\sim α^4(H_0)\sim 10^{-4}$ in terms of the same gauge coupling constant $α(H_0)$, which is fixed in our framework by recent BICEP2 measurements of the tensor fraction $r\simeq 0.2$.

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arXiv2014

Inflaton as an auxiliary topological field in a QCD-like system

We propose a new scenario for early cosmology, where inflationary de Sitter phase dynamically occurs. The effect emerges as a result of dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in expanding universe. Technically the effect can be described in terms of the auxiliary fields which effectively describe the dynamics of the topological sectors in a gauge theory. Inflaton in this framework is an auxiliary topological non-propagating field with no canonical kinetic term, similar to known topologically ordered phases in condensed matter systems. We explain many deep questions in this framework using the so-called weakly coupled "deformed QCD" toy model.While this theory is weakly coupled gauge theory, it preserves all the crucial elements of strongly interacting gauge theory, including confinement, nontrivial $θ$ dependence, degeneracy of the topological sectors, etc. We discuss a specific realization of these ideas using a scaled up version of QCD, coined as \qcd, with the scale M_{PL}\gg \Lbar\gg \sqrt[3]{M_{EW}^2M_{PL}}\sim 10^8 {\mathrm{GeV}}. If no other fields are present in the system de Sitter phase will be the final destination of evolution of the universe. If other interactions are present in the system, the inflationary de Sitter phase lasts for a finite period of time. The inflation starts from the thermal equilibrium state long after the \qcd -confinement phase transition at temperature T_{i}\sim \Lbar\sqrt{\frac{\Lbar}{M_{PL}}}. The end of inflation is triggered by the coupling with gauge bosons from the Standard Model. The corresponding interaction is unambiguously fixed by the triangle anomaly. Number of e-folds in the \qcd-inflation framework is determined by the gauge coupling constant at the moment of inflation, and estimated as N_{\rm inf}\sim α_s^{-2}\sim 10^2.

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arXiv2014

Isotropic Radio Background from Quark Nugget Dark Matter

Recent measurements by the ARCADE2 experiment unambiguously show an excess in the isotropic radio background at frequencies below the GHz scale. We argue that this excess may be a natural consequence of the interaction of visible and dark matter in the early universe if the dark matter consists of heavy nuggets of quark matter. Explanation of the observed radio band excess requires the introduction of no new parameters, rather we exploit the same dark matter model and identical normalization parameters to those previously used to explain other excesses of diffuse emission from the centre of our galaxy. These previously observed excesses include the WMAP Haze of GHz radiation, keV X -ray emission and MeV gamma-ray radiation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Conformal window in QCD for large numbers of colours and flavours

We conjecture that the phase transitions in QCD at large number of colours N\gg 1 is triggered by the drastic change in the instanton density. As a result of it, all physical observables also experience some sharp modification in the θbehaviour. This conjecture is motivated by the holographic model of QCD where confinement -deconfinement phase transition indeed happens precisely at temperature T=T_c where $θ$ dependence of the vacuum energy experiences a sudden change in behaviour: from N^2\cos(θ/N) at T T_c. This conjecture is also supported by recent lattice studies. We employ this conjecture to study a possible phase transition as a function of κ\equiv N_f/N from confinement to conformal phase in the Veneziano limit N_f\sim N when number of flavours and colours are large, but the ratio κis finite. Technically, we consider an operator which gets its expectation value solely from nonperturbative instaton effects. When κexceeds some critical value κ> κ_c the integral over instanton size is dominated by small-size instatons, making the instanton computations reliable with expected \exp(-N) behaviour. However, when κ<κ_c, the integral over instaton size is dominated by large-size instantons, and the instanton expansion breaks down. This regime with κ<κ_c corresponds to the confinement phase. We also compute the variation of the critical κ_c(T, μ) when the temperature and chemical potential T, μ\ll Λ_{QCD} slightly vary. We also discuss the scaling (x_i-x_j)^{-γ_{\rm det}} in the conformal phase.

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arXiv2013

Maxwell Theory on a Compact Manifold as a Topologically Ordered System

We study novel type of contributions to the entropy of the Maxwell system defined on a compact manifold such as torus. These new terms are not related to the physical propagating photons. Rather, these novel contributions emerge as a result of tunnelling events when transitions occur between topologically different but physical identical vacuum winding states. We compute two new (topologically protected) types of contributions to the entropy in this system resulting from this dynamics. First contribution has a negative sign, expressed in terms of the magnetic susceptibility, and it is similar in spirit to topological entanglement entropy discussed in condensed matter systems. The second contribution with a positive sign results from the emergent degeneracy which occurs when the system is placed into a background of external magnetic field. This degeneracy resembles a similar effect which occurs at θ=πin topological insulators. Based on these computations we claim that the Maxwell system defined on 4 torus behaves in many respects as a topologically ordered system.

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arXiv2013

Quark (Anti) Nugget Dark Matter

Prepared for Snowmass 2013 e-Proceedings. We review a testable dark matter model outside of the standard WIMP paradigm in which the observed ratio Omega_{dark} ~ 5 Omega_{visible} for visible and dark matter densities finds its natural explanation as a result of their common QCD origin. Special emphasis is placed on the observational consequences of this model and on the detection prospects for present or planned experiments. In particular, we argue that the relative intensities for a number of observed excesses of emission (covering more than 11 orders of magnitude) can be explained by this model without any new fundamental parameters as all relative intensities for these emissions are determined by standard and well established physics.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

QCD as a topologically ordered system

We argue that QCD belongs to a topologically ordered phase similar to many well-known condensed matter systems with a gap such as topological insulators or superconductors. Our arguments are based on an analysis of the so-called "deformed QCD" which is a weakly coupled gauge theory, but nevertheless preserves all the crucial elements of strongly interacting QCD, including confinement, nontrivial $θ$ dependence, degeneracy of the topological sectors, etc. Specifically, we construct the so-called topological "BF" action which reproduces the well known infrared features of the theory such as non-dispersive contribution to the topological susceptibility which can not be associated with any propagating degrees of freedom. Furthermore, we interpret the well known resolution of the celebrated $U(1)_A$ problem where the would be $η'$ Goldstone boson generates its mass as a result of mixing of the Goldstone field with a topological auxiliary field characterizing the system. We then identify the non-propagating auxiliary topological field of the BF formulation in deformed QCD with the Veneziano ghost (which plays the crucial role in resolution of the $U(1)_A$ problem). Finally, we elaborate on relation between "string -net" condensation in topologically ordered condensed matter systems and long range coherent configurations, the "skeletons", studied in QCD lattice simulations.

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