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Damien Easson

Publications and source records attributed to Damien Easson.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Primordial black hole mass functions as a probe of cosmic origin

We discuss a novel window to probe the origin of our universe via the mass functions of primordial black holes (PBHs). The mass functions of PBHs are simply estimated using the conventional Press-Schechter formalism for two paradigms of cosmic origin, including inflationary $Λ$CDM and bounce cosmology. The standard inflationary $Λ$CDM model cannot generate an appreciable number of massive PBHs; however, non-trivial inflation models with blue-tilted power spectra at small scales and matter bounce cosmology provide formation mechanisms for heavy PBHs, which in turn, may seed the observed supermassive black holes (SMBHs). By fitting the SMBH mass functions at high redshift ($z \sim 6$) derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) quasars, for two paradigms of cosmic origin, we derive constraints on the PBH density fraction $f_{\mathrm{PBH}}$ at $z \sim 6$ and the characteristic mass $M_{\star}$, with the prior assumption that all SMBHs stem from PBHs. We demonstrate that this newly proposed procedure, relying on astronomical measurements that utilize deep-field surveys of SMBHs at high redshift, can be used to constrain models of cosmic origin. Additionally, although not the main focus of this paper, we evolve the mass function from $z\sim6$ to $z\sim0$ through an assumption of $3\times 10^8$-year Eddington's accretion, and give a rough estimation of $f_{\mathrm{PBH}}$ at $z \sim 0$.

astro-ph.CO

The Stringy Origins of Galileons and their Novel Limit

We show generalized Galileons -- a particular subclass of Horndeski gravity -- arise from a consistent Kaluza-Klein reduction of the low-energy effective action of heterotic string theory to first order in $α'$. This suggests Horndeski theories of gravity have a string-theoretic origin. The form of the Galileonic terms is precisely fixed by parameters of the embedding spacetime, so that only a specific subset of Horndeski theories is permitted by string theory. A novel limit of the model is considered by performing a dimensionful rescaling of $α'$.

hep-th

Cycling in the Throat

We analyse the dynamics of a probe D3-(anti-)brane propagating in a warped string compactification, making use of the Dirac-Born-Infeld action approximation. We also examine the time dependent expansion of such moving branes from the ``mirage cosmology'' perspective, where cosmology is induced by the brane motion in the background spacetime. A range of physically interesting backgrounds are considered: AdS5, Klebanov-Tseytlin and Klebanov-Strassler. Our focus is on exploring what new phenomenology is obtained from giving the brane angular momentum in the extra dimensions. We find that in general, angular momentum creates a centrifugal barrier, causing bouncing cosmologies. More unexpected, and more interesting, is the existence of bound orbits, corresponding to cyclic universes.

hep-th