arXiv subjects

Glenn D. Starkman

Publications and source records attributed to Glenn D. Starkman.

141 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2000

The Angular Scale of Topologically-Induced Flat Spots in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

The notion that the topology of the universe need not be that of the universal covering space of its geometry has recently received renewed attention. Generic signatures of cosmological topology have been sought, both in the distribution of objects in the universe, and especially in the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). One signature identified in the horn topology but hypothesized to be generic is featureless regions or flat spots in the CMBR sky. We show that typical observation points within the cusped 3-manifold m003 from the Snappea census have flat spots with an angular scale of about five degrees for $Ω_0$=0.3. We expect that this holds for other small volume cusped manifolds with this $Ω_0$ value.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1999

Neutrino Masses and Mixing with General Mass Matrices

We consider the most general neutrino masses and mixings including Dirac mass terms, M_D, as well as Majorana masses, M_R and M_L. Neither the Majorana nor the Dirac mass matrices are expected to be diagonal in the eigenbasis of weak interactions, and so the resulting eigenstates of the Hamiltonian are admixtures of $\SU(2)_L$ singlet and doublet fields of different ``generations.'' We show that for three generations each of doublet and singlet neutrinos, diagonalization of the Hamiltonian to obtain the propagating eigenstates in the general case requires diagonalization of a $12\times12$ Hermitian matrix, rather than the traditional $6\times6$ symmetric mass matrix. The symmetries of the $12\times12$ matrix {\em are} such that it has 6 pairs of real eigenvalues. Although the standard "see-saw" mechanism remains valid, and indeed the eigenvalues obtained are identical to the standard ones, the correct description of diagonalization and mixing is more complicated. The analogs of the CKM matrix for the light and the heavy neutrinos are nonunitary, enriching the opportunities for CP violation in the full neutrino sector.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS)

Natural (such as lunar) occultations have long been used to study sources on small angular scales, while coronographs have been used to study high contrast sources. We propose launching the Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS), a large steerable occulting satellite to combine both of these techniques. BOSS will have several advantages over standard occulting bodies. BOSS would block all but about 4e-5 of the light at 1 micron in the region of interest around the star for planet detections. Because the occultation occurs outside the telescope, scattering inside the telescope does not degrade this performance. BOSS could be combined with a space telescope at the Earth-Sun L2 point to yield very long integration times, in excess of 3000 seconds. If placed in Earth orbit, integration times of 160--1600 seconds can be achieved from most major telescope sites for objects in over 90% of the sky. Applications for BOSS include direct imaging of planets around nearby stars. Planets separated by as little as 0.1--0.25 arcseconds from the star they orbit could be seen down to a relative intensity as little as 1e-9 around a magnitude 8 (or brighter) star. Other applications include ultra-high resolution imaging of compound sources, such as microlensed stars and quasars, down to a resolution as little as 0.1 milliarcseconds.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1999

Life, The Universe, and Nothing: Life and Death in an Ever-Expanding Universe

Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological constant-dominated, our ability to probe the evolution of large scale structure will decrease with time ---presently observable distant sources will disappear on a time-scale comparable to the period of stellar burning. Moreover, while the Universe might expand forever, the integrated conscious lifetime of any civilization will be finite, although it can be astronomically long. We find that this latter result is far more general. In the absence of possible exotic and uncertain strong gravitational effects, the total information recoverable by any civilization over the entire history of our universe is finite, and assuming that consciousness has a physical computational basis, life cannot be eternal.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1998

Of Matter Less Repulsive than a Cosmological Constant

The case grows ever stronger that the average density of matter, ordinary and dark, is less than the critical density required for a flat universe. However, most of determinations of the mass density have been dynamical, hence sensitive only to matter which is clustered at or below the scale of the observed dynamical systems. The density may still be critical if there is a dark matter component which is relatively smooth on the scales of galaxies or clusters. Thoughts on this matter have focused on the possibility of an effective cosmological constant or vacuum energy. In this letter we examine an alternative possibility - that there is a second component to the dark matter which has a repulsive self-interaction. We show that given even very weak self-repulsion, this dark matter would remain unclustered. While this repulsive alternative is perhaps aptly named, it is arguably at least as palatable as a cosmological constant.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1998

Looking Down the Light Cone: Can Deep Redshift Surveys Alone Measure the Power Spectrum?

We analyze the window functions for the spherical harmonic mode estimators of all--sky, volume limited surveys considering evolutionary effects along the past light--cone which include the deviation of the distance scale from a linear relationship with redshift, linear peculiar velocity corrections, and linear evolution of the density perturbations. The spherical harmonic basis functions are considered because they correspond most closely to the symmetries of typical survey geometries and of the light--cone effects we consider. Our results show substantial broadening of the windows over that expected by ignoring light--cone effects, indicating the difficulty of measuring the power spectrum independently from cosmology. We suggest that because of light--cone effects, deep redshift surveys should either be analyzed in conjunction with CMBR data which determines the cosmological parameters, or by using a Bayesian likelihood scheme in which varying cosmological parameters and a simple parameterization of the primordial power spectrum are assumed as the priors, so that observed data can be mapped from redshift to real space. The derived power spectrum can then be compared to underlying models of fluctuation generation and growth in structure formation to evaluate both these models and the cosmological priors.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1997

Measuring the Topology of the Universe

Observations of microwave background fluctuations can yield information not only about the geometry of the universe, but potentially about the topology of the universe. If the universe is negatively curved, then the characteristic scale for the topology of the universe is the curvature radius. Thus, if we are seeing the effects of the geometry of the universe, we can hope to soon see signatures of the topology of the universe. The cleanest signature of the topology of the universe is written on the microwave sky: there should be thousands of pairs of matched circles. These circles can be used to determine the precise topology and volume of the universe. Since we see hundreds of slices through the fundamental domain of the universe, we can use the microwave observations to reconstruct the initial conditions of the entire universe on the scale of a few Megaparsecs.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1997

The Improved Resolution and Image Separation (IRIS) Satellite

Natural (such as lunar) occultations have long been used to study sources on small angular scales, while coronographs have been used to study high contrast sources. We propose launching the Improved Resolution and Image Selection (IRIS) Satellite, a large steerable occulting satellite. IRIS will have several advantages over standard occulting bodies. IRIS blocks up to 99.97% of the visible light from the occulted point source. Because the occultation occurs outside both the telescope and the atmosphere, seeing and telescope imperfections do not degrade this performance. If placed in Earth orbit, integration times of 250-2500 \second can be achieved over 95% of the sky, from most major telescope sites. Alternatively, combining IRIS with a basic 2-m (or 4-m) space telescope at the Earth-Sun L2 point could yield longer integration times and simplified orbital dynamics. Applications for IRIS include searching for planets around nearby stars, resolution of micro-lensed LMC and Galactic bulge stars into distinct image pairs, and detailed mapping of solar system planets from the ground. Using ground-based K-band observations, a Jovian planet with a surface temperature of 400 \kelvin or Venus at 700 \kelvin could be imaged at all angular separations greater than about $0.35\as$ out to over $10\parsec$. Space based observations in the K-band (in emission) or B-band (in reflection) could do better. Resolution of microlensed stars would greatly improve our understanding of the Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs) responsible for observed microlensing events and comprising 20-90% of the mass of our galaxy.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Comment on ``Constraints on the strength of primordial B-fields from big bang nucleosynthesis reexamined''

Recently Cheng, Olinto, Schramm and Truran (COST) reexamined the constraints from big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) on the strength of primordial magnetic fields. Their bottom line agreed with that of an earlier recent paper on the subject (Kernan, Starkman and Vachaspati (KSV)), both in its final limit on the magnetic field during BBN, and in its conclusion that for allowed values of the magnetic field the dominant factor for BBN is the increased expansion rate at a given temperature caused by the energy density of the magnetic field, $B^2/8π$. However, their conclusion that weak interaction rates increased with increasing B-field at these low field values contradicted the earlier results of KSV. In this comment we point out that the Taylor series expansion of the weak interaction rate about B=0 used in COST is not well-defined, while the Euler-McLaurin expansion of KSV is well-behaved and reliable. Using the Euler-McLaurin expansion we find that the weak interaction rates decrease rather than increase with increasing B-field at small values of the B-field.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Family Replication in the Dual Standard Model

The family replication problem is addressed in the context of the dual standard model. The breaking of a simple grand unified group to $[G_{low} \times H_1 \times H_2 \times H_3]/Z_5^3$ and then further to $G_{low}$, produces a spectrum of stable monopoles that fall in three families each of whose magnetic quantum numbers correspond to the electric charges on the fermions of the Standard Model. Here $G_{low}=[SU(3) \times SU(2) \times U(1)]/Z_6$ is the symmetry group of the standard model above the weak scale, and $H_i$ are simple Lie groups which each have a $Z_5$ symmetry in common with $G_{low}$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1996

Does Chaotic Mixing Facilitate Omega<1 Inflation?

Yes, if the universe has compact topology. Inflation is currently the most elegant explanation of why the universe is old, large, nearly flat, homogeneous on large scales and structured on small scales. One of the weaknesses of the inflationary paradigm is the problem of initial conditions for inflation: the pre-inflationary universe must be somewhat old, somewhat large and somewhat homogeneous. These initial condition requirements are even more severe in Omega < 1 inflationary models: if the universe does not inflate enough to appear flat, then it does not inflate enough to appear homogeneous. One solution is to have two inflationary epochs. Here, we propose another solution to the problem of pre-inflationary homogeneity: if the universe is compact, then during the pre-inflationary period, there is sufficient time to homogenize the universe as chaotic mixing smoothes out primordial fluctuations. Gradients in the energy-density are reduced as e^(-kappa d), where kappa is the Kolomogorov-Sinai entropy of the flow, and d is the distance the flow travels. We explore this homogenization process, outline why compact negatively-curved universes are the most natural, and conclude with a discussion of the implications of living in such a universe.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Galactic Cosmic Strings as Sources of Primary Antiprotons

A possible signature of a class of superconducting cosmic strings trapped in the Milky Way plasma is the emission of low energy antiprotons due to baryon number violating processes on the string. We find the terrestrial flux and the energy spectrum of such antiprotons. Current observational bounds on the flux of low energy antiprotons place a {\it lower} bound on the string tension which is comparable to that given by the electroweak scale.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Circles in the Sky: Finding Topology with the Microwave Background Radiation

If the universe is finite and smaller than the distance to the surface of last scatter, then the signature of the topology of the universe is writ on the microwave background sky. Previous efforts to search for this topology have focused on one particular model: a toroidal flat universe. We show how both the high degree of spatial symmetry of this topology and the integrability of its geodesics make it unreliable as a paradigmatic example, and discuss why topology on scales significantly smaller than the horizon are not ruled out by previous analyses focussing on this special case. We show that in these small universes the microwave background will be identified at the intersections of the surface of last scattering as seen by different ``copies'' of the observer. Since the surface of last scattering is a sphere, these intersections will be circles, regardless of the background geometry or topology. We therefore propose a statistic that is sensitive to all small finite homogeneous topologies. Here, small means that the distance to the surface of last scatter is smaller than the ``periodicity scale'' of the universe.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Primordial Magnetic Fields

We reanalyze the effect of magnetic fields in BBN, incorporating several features which were omitted in previous analyses. We find that the effects of coherent magnetic fields on the weak interaction rates and the electron thermodynamic functions (\rhoe, \Pe, and \drhoedt ) are unimportant in comparison to the contribution of the magnetic field energy density in BBN. In consequence the effect of including magnetic fields in BBN is well approximated numerically by treating the additional energy density as effective neutrino number. A conservative upper bound on the primordial magnetic field, parameterized as $ζ=2eB_{rms}/(T_ν^2)$, is $ζ\le 2$ ($ρ_B < 0.27 ρ_ν$). This bound can be stronger than the conventional bound coming from the Faraday rotation measures of distant quasars if the cosmological magnetic field is generated by a causal mechanism.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1994

A New Technique for Detecting Supersymmetric Dark Matter

We estimate the event rate for excitation of atomic transition by photino-like dark matter. For excitations of several eV, this event rate can exceed naive cross-section by many orders of magnitude. Although the event rate for these atomic excitation is smaller than that of nuclear recoil off of non-zero spin nuclei, the photons emitted by the deexcitation are easier to detect than low-energy nuclear recoils. For many elements, there are several low-lying states with comparable excitation rates, thus, spectral ratios could be used to distinguish signal from background.

hep-ph↗