arXiv subjects

Evan McDonough

Publications and source records attributed to Evan McDonough.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Strongly-Interacting Ultralight Millicharged Particles

We consider the implications of an ultra-light fermionic dark matter candidate that carries baryon number. This naturally arises if dark matter has a small charge under standard model baryon number whilst having an asymmetry equal and opposite to that in the visible universe. A prototypical model is a theory of dark baryons of a non-Abelian gauge group, i.e., a dark Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD). For sub-eV dark baryon masses, the inner region of dark matter halos is naturally at 'nuclear density', allowing for the formation of exotic states of matter, akin to neutron stars. The Tremaine-Gunn lower bound on the mass of fermionic dark matter, i.e., the dark baryons, is violated by the strong short-range self-interactions, cooling via emission of light dark pions, and the Cooper pairing of dark quarks that occurs at densities that are high relative to the (ultra-low) dark QCD scale. We develop the astrophysics of these STrongly-interacting Ultra-light Millicharged Particles (STUMPs) utilizing the equation of state of dense quark matter, and find halo cores consistent with observations of dwarf galaxies. These cores are prevented from core-collapse by pressure of the 'neutron star', which suggests ultra-light dark QCD as a resolution to core-cusp problem of collisionless cold dark matter. The model is distinguished from ultra-light bosonic dark matter through direct detection and collider signatures, as well as by phenomena associated with superconductivity, such as Andreev reflection and superconducting vortices.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos

We study gravitational particle production of the massive spin-$3/2$ Rarita-Schwinger field, and its close relative, the gravitino, in FRW cosmological spacetimes. For masses lighter than the value of the Hubble expansion rate after inflation, $m_{3/2} \lesssim H$, we find catastrophic gravitational particle production, wherein the number of gravitationally produced particles is divergent, caused by a transient vanishing of the helicity-1/2 gravitino sound speed. In contrast with the conventional gravitino problem, the spectrum of produced particles is dominated by those with momentum at the UV cutoff. This suggests a breakdown of effective field theory, which might be cured by new degrees of freedom that emerge in the UV. We study the UV completion of the Rarita-Schwinger field, namely ${\cal N}=1$, $d=4$, supergravity. We reproduce known results for models with a single superfield and models with an arbitrary number of chiral superfields, find a simple geometric expression for the sound speed in the latter case, and extend this to include nilpotent constrained superfields and orthogonal constrained superfields. We find supergravity models where the catastrophe is cured and models where it persists. Insofar as quantizing the gravitino is tantamount to quantizing gravity, as is the case in any UV completion of supergravity, the models exhibiting catastrophic production are prime examples of 4-dimensional effective field theories that become inconsistent when gravity is quantized, suggesting a possible link to the Swampland program. We propose the Gravitino Swampland Conjecture, which is consistent with and indeed follows from the KKLT and Large Volume scenarios for moduli stabilization in string theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

The Gravitino Swampland Conjecture

We extend the swampland from effective field theories (EFTs) inconsistent with quantum gravity to EFTs inconsistent with quantum supergravity. This enlarges the swampland to include EFTs that become inconsistent when the gravitino is quantized. We propose the Gravitino Swampland Conjecture: the gravitino sound speed must be non-vanishing in all EFTs that are low energy limits of quantum supergravity. This seemingly simple statement has important consequences for both theories and observations. The conjecture is consistent with and supported by the KKLT and LVS scenarios for moduli stabilization in string theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Chiral Symmetry and the Cosmological Constant

In this work we provide a link between a nearly vanishing cosmological constant and chiral symmetry. This is accomplished with a modification of General Relativity coupled to a topological field theory, namely BF theory by introducing fermions charged under the BF theory gauge group. We find that the cosmological constant sources a chiral anomaly for the fermions, providing a `technical naturalness' explanation for the smallness of the observed cosmological constant. Applied to the early universe, we show that production of fermions during inflation can provide all the dark matter in the universe today, in the form of superheavy dark baryons.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Primordial Black Holes Arise When The Inflaton Falls

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) have entered the forefront of theoretical cosmology, due their potential role in phenomena ranging from gravitational waves, to dark matter, to galaxy formation. While producing PBHs from inflationary fluctuations naively would seem to require a large deceleration of the inflaton from its velocity at the horizon exit of CMB scales, in this work we demonstrate that an acceleration from a relatively small downward step in the potential that is transited in much less than an e-fold amplifies fluctuations as well. Depending on the location of the step, such PBHs could explain dark matter or the black holes detected by the gravitational wave interferometers. The perturbation enhancement has a natural interpretation as particle production due to the non-adiabatic transition associated with the step.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Higher Spin Dark Matter

Little is known about dark matter beyond the fact that it does not interact with the standard model or itself, or else does so incredibly weakly. A natural candidate, given the history of no-go theorems against their interactions, are higher spin fields. Here we develop the scenario of higher spin (spin $s>2$) dark matter. We show that the gravitational production of superheavy bosonic higher spin fields during inflation can provide all the dark matter we observe today. We consider the observable signatures, and find a potential characteristic signature of bosonic higher spin dark matter in directional direct detection; we find that there are distinct spin-dependent contributions to the double differential recoil rate, which complement the oscillatory imprint of higher spin fields in the cosmic microwave background. We consider the extension to higher spin fermions and supersymmetric higher spins.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Constraining Early Dark Energy with Large-Scale Structure

An axion-like field comprising $\sim 10\%$ of the energy density of the universe near matter-radiation equality is a candidate to resolve the Hubble tension; this is the "early dark energy" (EDE) model. However, as shown in Hill et al. (2020), the model fails to simultaneously resolve the Hubble tension and maintain a good fit to both cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS) data. Here, we use redshift-space galaxy clustering data to sharpen constraints on the EDE model. We perform the first EDE analysis using the full-shape power spectrum likelihood from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), based on the effective field theory (EFT) of LSS. The inclusion of this likelihood in the EDE analysis yields a $25\%$ tighter error bar on $H_0$ compared to primary CMB data alone, yielding $H_0 = 68.54^{+0.52}_{-0.95}$ km/s/Mpc ($68\%$ CL). In addition, we constrain the maximum fractional energy density contribution of the EDE to $f_{\rm EDE} < 0.072$ ($95\%$ CL). We explicitly demonstrate that the EFT BOSS likelihood yields much stronger constraints on EDE than the standard BOSS likelihood. Including further information from photometric LSS surveys,the constraints narrow by an additional $20\%$, yielding $H_0 = 68.73^{+0.42}_{-0.69}$ km/s/Mpc ($68\%$ CL) and $f_{\rm EDE}<0.053$ ($95\%$ CL). These bounds are obtained without including local-universe $H_0$ data, which is in strong tension with the CMB and LSS, even in the EDE model. We also refute claims that MCMC analyses of EDE that omit SH0ES from the combined dataset yield misleading posteriors. Finally, we demonstrate that upcoming Euclid/DESI-like spectroscopic galaxy surveys can greatly improve the EDE constraints. We conclude that current data preclude the EDE model as a resolution of the Hubble tension, and that future LSS surveys can close the remaining parameter space of this model.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

The Cosmological Heavy Ion Collider: Fast Thermalization after Cosmic Inflation

Heavy-ion colliders have revealed the process of "fast thermalization". This experimental breakthrough has led to new theoretical tools to study the thermalization process at both weak and strong coupling. We apply this to the reheating epoch of inflationary cosmology, and the formation of a cosmological quark gluon plasma (QGP). We compute the thermalization time of the QGP at reheating, and find it is determined by the energy scale of inflation and the shear viscosity to entropy ratio $η/s$; or equivalently, the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the strong coupling constant at the epoch of thermalization. Thermalization is achieved near-instantaneously in low-scale inflation and in strongly coupled systems, and takes of order or less than a single e-fold of expansion for weakly-coupled systems or after high-scale inflation. We demonstrate that the predictions of inflation are robust to the physics of thermalization, and find a stochastic background of gravitational waves at frequencies accessible by interferometers, albeit with a small amplitude.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Early Dark Energy Does Not Restore Cosmological Concordance

Current cosmological data exhibit a tension between inferences of the Hubble constant, $H_0$, derived from early and late-universe measurements. One proposed solution is to introduce a new component in the early universe, which initially acts as "early dark energy" (EDE), thus decreasing the physical size of the sound horizon imprinted in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and increasing the inferred $H_0$. Previous EDE analyses have shown this model can relax the $H_0$ tension, but the CMB-preferred value of the density fluctuation amplitude, $σ_8$, increases in EDE as compared to $Λ$CDM, increasing tension with large-scale structure (LSS) data. We show that the EDE model fit to CMB and SH0ES data yields scale-dependent changes in the matter power spectrum compared to $Λ$CDM, including $10\%$ more power at $k = 1~h$/Mpc. Motivated by this observation, we reanalyze the EDE scenario, considering LSS data in detail. We also update previous analyses by including $Planck$ 2018 CMB likelihoods, and perform the first search for EDE in $Planck$ data alone, which yields no evidence for EDE. We consider several data set combinations involving the primary CMB, CMB lensing, SNIa, BAO, RSD, weak lensing, galaxy clustering, and local distance-ladder data (SH0ES). While the EDE component is weakly detected (3$σ$) when including the SH0ES data and excluding most LSS data, this drops below 2$σ$ when further LSS data are included. Further, this result is in tension with strong constraints imposed on EDE by CMB and LSS data without SH0ES, which show no evidence for this model. We also show that physical priors on the fundamental scalar field parameters further weaken evidence for EDE. We conclude that the EDE scenario is, at best, no more likely to be concordant with all current cosmological data sets than $Λ$CDM, and appears unlikely to resolve the $H_0$ tension.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Physics Beyond The Standard Model with Circular Polarization in the CMB and CMB-21cm Cross-Correlation

Circular polarization is a relatively unexplored realm of CMB physics. Given the substantial community effort towards building next generation CMB polarization experiments, including those which will be sensitive to circular polarization, it behooves theorists to understand the possible sources and relevant physics of circular polarization, as encoded in the Stokes V parameter. In this work we develop and derive the requisite formalism, namely the Boltzmann hierarchy for V-mode scalar, vector, and tensor, anisotropies. We derive the V-mode anisotropies induced by a general source term, and demonstrate how existing proposals for the generation of V can be incorporated as source terms in the Boltzmann hierarchy. A subset of these effects may be correlated with 21cm intensity; we provide a worked example and derive an estimator to extract this information from observations. We conclude by computing the CMB TV cross-correlation generated by axions, and find a relation between TV and VV spectra in axion models.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Primordial Circular Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Circular ("V-mode") polarization is expected to be vanishing in the CMB, since it is not produced in Thomson scattering. However, considering that the conventional CMB anisotropies are generated via an early universe mechanism such as inflation or a bouncing scenario, it is possible that circular polarization could be primordially produced and survive to the surface of last scattering. We study this in detail, and find a large class of inflationary models that produce a nearly scale invariant spectrum of scalar V-mode anisotropies. We study the inflationary production and subsequent evolution via the Boltzmann hierarchy, and show that V-mode polarization present in the CMB is suppressed by a factor of at least $10^{10^{20}}$ relative to the primordial $V$, consistent with expectation of negligible V-mode polarization from inflation. We consider alternative possibilities for sourcing $V$ primordially, such as the V-mode polarization induced by circularly polarized primordial gravitational waves, or producing $V$ after inflation, via new interactions at recombination.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Higher Spin Supersymmetry at the Cosmological Collider: Sculpting SUSY Rilles in the CMB

We study the imprint of higher spin supermultiplets on cosmological correlators, namely the non-Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background. Supersymmetry is used as a guide to introduce the contribution of fermionic higher spin particles, which have been neglected thus far in the literature. This necessarily introduces more than just a single additional fermionic superpartner, since the spectrum of massive, higher spin supermultiplets includes two propagating higher spin bosons and two propagating higher spin fermions, which all contribute to the three point function. As an example we consider the half-integer superspin $\textsf{Y}=s+1/2$ supermultiplet, which includes particles of spin values $j=s+1,~j=s+1/2,~j=s+1/2$ and $j=s$. We compute the curvature perturbation 3-point function for higher spin particle exchange and find that the known $P_{s}(\cos θ)$ angular dependence is accompanied by superpartner contributions that scale as $P_{s+1}(\cos θ)$ and $\sum_{m}P^{m}_{s} (\cos θ)$, with $P_{s}$ and $P_{s} ^m$ defined as the Legendre and Associated Legendre polynomials respectively. We also compute the tensor-scalar-scalar 3-point function, and find a complicated angular dependence as an integral over products of Legendre and associated Legendre polynomials.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Axion-Dilaton Destabilization and the Hubble Tension

The discrepancy in measurements of the Hubble constant indicates new physics in dark energy, dark matter, or both. Drawing inspiration from string theory, where axions interact with the other moduli fields, including the dilaton, here we demonstrate that the dynamics of an interacting dilaton and axion naturally realizes the proposal of Early Dark Energy. In this setup, stabilization of the the dilaton is in part due to the axion, and in the early universe the dilaton contributes to dark energy. The combined axion-dilaton system is destabilized when the Hubble constant falls below the mass of the axion, triggering a phase of fast-roll evolution of the dilaton wherein its equation of state is $w=1$, and the early dark energy redshifts away as $a^{-6}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Deep Learning the Morphology of Dark Matter Substructure

Strong gravitational lensing is a promising probe of the substructure of dark matter halos. Deep learning methods have the potential to accurately identify images containing substructure, and differentiate WIMP dark matter from other well motivated models, including vortex substructure of dark matter condensates and superfluids. This is crucial in future efforts to identify the true nature of dark matter. We implement, for the first time, a classification approach to identifying dark matter substructure based on simulated strong lensing images with different substructure. Utilizing convolutional neural networks trained on sets of simulated images, we demonstrate the feasibility of deep neural networks to reliably distinguish among different types of dark matter substructure. With thousands of strong lensing images anticipated with the coming launch of LSST, we expect that supervised and unsupervised deep learning models will play a crucial role in determining the nature of dark matter.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Dark Disk Substructure and Superfluid Dark Matter

Dark matter substructure has the potential to discriminate between broad classes of dark matter models. With this in mind, we construct novel solutions to the equations of motion governing condensate dark matter candidates, namely axion Bose-Einstein condensates and superfluids. These solutions are highly compressed along one axis and thus have a disk-like geometry. We discuss linear stability of these solutions, consider the astrophysical implications as a large-scale dark disk or as small scale substructure, and find a characteristic signal in strong gravitational lensing. This adds to the growing body of work that indicates that the morphology of dark matter substructure is a powerful probe of the nature of dark matter.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

dS Vacua and the Swampland

In this note we revisit some of the recent 10d and 4d arguments suggesting that uplifting of supersymmetric AdS vacua leads to flattening of the potential, preventing formation of dS vacua. We explain why the corresponding 10d approach is inconclusive and requires considerable modifications. We also show that while the flattening effects may occur for some extreme values of the parameters, they do not prevent the formation of dS vacua within the range of validity of the 4d KKLT models. The KL version of the KKLT scenario based on a racetrack superpotential requires parametrically small uplifting, which is not affected by flattening. We show that this scenario is compatible with the weak gravity conjecture for a broad choice of parameters of the KL model. Thus, the results of our analysis do not support the recent swampland conjecture.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Quantum Corrections and the de Sitter Swampland Conjecture

Recently a swampland criterion has been proposed that rules out de Sitter vacua in string theory. Such a criterion should hold at all points in the field space and especially at points where the system is on-shell. However there has not been any attempt to examine the swampland criterion against explicit equations of motion. In this paper we study four-dimensional de Sitter and quasi-de Sitter solutions using dimensionally reduced M-theory. While on one hand all classical sources that could allow for solutions with de Sitter isometries are ruled out, the quantum corrections, on the other hand, are found to allow for de Sitter solutions provided certain constraints are satisfied. A careful study however shows that generically such a constrained system does not allow for an effective field theory description in four-dimensions. Nevertheless, if some hierarchies between the various quantum pieces could be found, certain solutions with an effective field theory description might exist. Such hierarchies appear once some mild time dependence is switched on, in which case certain quasi-de Sitter solutions may be found without a violation of the swampland criterion.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Observable Chiral Gravitational Waves from Inflation in String Theory

We consider gravitational wave production during inflation in type IIB string theory, and the possibility of observable gravitational waves in small field inflation. We show that the gauge field excitations on a set of coincident D7 branes, itself critical for moduli stabilization and hence intrinsic to inflation in string theory, coupled with axion fields from bulk fluxes, can act as a spectator sector during inflation. This results in a large production of chiral gravitational waves, even for relatively small values of the axion-gauge field coupling. We extend this to include a monodromy for the axion, and demonstrate that in both cases an observable level of gravitational waves is produced in small field inflation in string theory, with a spectrum that is maximally chiral. Finally, we demonstrate the consistency with moduli stabilization and with arbitrary (large or small field) inflationary dynamics of the host model, considering as an explicit example Kahler Moduli Inflation.

hep-th↗