arXiv subjects

Hongwei Yu

Publications and source records attributed to Hongwei Yu.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Emergent universe from the Hořava-Lifshitz gravity

We study the stability of the Einstein static universe in the Hořava-Lifshitz (HL) gravity and a generalized version of it formulated by Sotiriou, Visser and Weifurtner. We find that, for the HL cosmology, there exists a stable Einstein static state if the cosmological constant $Λ$ is negative. The universe can stay at this stable state eternally and thus the big bang singularity can be avoided. However, in this case, the Universe can not exit to an inflationary era. For the Sotiriou, Visser and Weifurtner HL cosmology, if the cosmic scale factor satisfies certain conditions initially, the Universe can stay at the stable state past eternally and may undergo a series of infinite, nonsingular oscillations. Once the parameter of the equation of state $w$ approaches a critical value, the stable critical point coincides with the unstable one, and the Universe enters an inflationary era. Therefore, the big bang singularity can be avoided and a subsequent inflation can occur naturally.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2010

The stability of Einstein static universe in the DGP braneworld

The stability of an Einstein static universe in the DGP braneworld scenario is studied in this paper. Two separate branches denoted by $ε=\pm1$ of the DGP model are analyzed. Assuming the existence of a perfect fluid with a constant equation of state, $w$, in the universe, we find that, for the branch with $ε=1$, there is no a stable Einstein static solution, while, for the case with $ε=-1$, the Einstein static universe exists and it is stable when $-1<w<-1/3$. Thus, the universe can stay at this stable state past-eternally and may undergo a series of infinite, non-singular oscillations. Therefore, the big bang singularity problem in the standard cosmological model can be resolved.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2009

Testing the (generalized) Chaplygin gas model with the Lookback time-Redshift data

The Chaplygin gas (CG) and the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) models, proposed as candidates of the unified dark matter-dark energy (UDME), are tested with the look-back time (LT) redshift data. We find that the LT data only give a very weak constraint on the model parameter. However, by combing the LT with the baryonic acoustic oscillation peak, we obtain, at the 95.4% confidence level, $0.68\leq A_c\leq0.82$ and $0.59\leq h\leq0.65$ for the CG model, and $0.67\leq A_s\leq0.89$ and $-0.29\leq α\leq0.61$ for the GCG model. This shows that both the CG and the GCG are viable as a candidate of UDME. Within the GCG model, we also find that the Chaplygin gas model ($α=1$) is ruled out by these data at the 99.7% confidence level.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Modification of energy shifts of atoms by the presence of a boundary in a thermal bath and the Casimir-Polder force

We study the modification by the presence of a plane wall of energy level shifts of two-level atoms which are in multipolar coupling with quantized electromagnetic fields in a thermal bath in a formalism which separates the contributions of thermal fluctuations and radiation reaction and allows a distinct treatment to atoms in the ground and excited states. The position dependent energy shifts give rise to an induced force acting on the atoms. We are able to identify three different regimes where the force shows distinct features and examine, in all regimes, the behaviors of this force in both the low temperature limit and the high temperature limit for both the ground state and excited state atoms, thus providing some physical insights into the atom-wall interaction at finite temperature. In particular, we show that both the magnitude and the direction of the force acting on an atom may have a clear dependence on atomic the polarization directions. In certain cases, a change of relative ratio of polarizations in different directions may result in a change of direction of the force.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Does Unruh radiation accelerate the universe? A novel approach to the cosmic acceleration

We present a novel mechanism for the present acceleration of the universe. We find that the temperature of the Unruh radiation perceived by the brane is not equal to the inherent temperature (Hawking temperature at the apparent horizon) of the brane universe in the frame of Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) braneworld model. The Unruh radiation perceived by a dust dominated brane is always warmer than the brane measured by the geometric temperature, which naturally induces an energy flow between bulk and brane based on the most sound thermodynamics principles. Through a thorough investigation to the microscopic mechanism of interaction between bulk Unruh radiation and brane matter, we put forward that an energy influx from bulk Unruh radiation to the dust matter on the brane accelerates the universe.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

A parametrization for the growth index of linear matter perturbations

We propose a parametrization for the growth index of the linear matter perturbations, $γ(z)=γ_0+\frac{z}{1+z}γ_1$. The growth factor of the perturbations parameterized as $Ω_m^γ$ is analyzed for both the $w$CDM model and the DGP model with our proposed form for $γ$. We find that $γ_1$ is negative for the $w$CDM model but is positive for the DGP model. Thus it provides another signature to discriminate them. We demonstrate that $Ω_m^γ$ with $γ$ taking our proposed form approximates the growth factor very well both at low and high redshfits for both kinds of models. In fact, the error is below 0.03% for the $Λ$CDM model and 0.18% for the DGP model for all redshifts when $Ω_{m0}=0.27$. Therefore, our parametrization may be robustly used to constrain the growth index of different models with the observational data which include points for redshifts ranging from 0.15 to 3.8, thus providing discriminative signatures for different models.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2009

Inverse volume corrections to emergent tachyonic inflation in loop quantum cosmology

The emergent model in the context of loop quantum cosmology with a tachyon scalar field is studied. We find that there is a center equilibrium point in the semiclassical region and a saddle point in the classical region. If the potential of the tachyon field satisfies some conditions, the universe can stay at the center equilibrium point past-eternally and then oscillate infinitely around this point with the tachyon climbing up its potential. Once the potential reaches a critical value, these two equilibrium points coincide with each other and the oscillation phase is broken by an emergent inflation. In order to obtain a successful emergent tachyon inflation, a constraint on $\dotϕ^2$ of tachyon is required.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

The growth of linear perturbations in the DGP model

We study the linear growth of matter perturbations in the DGP model with the growth index $γ$ as a function of redshift. At the linear approximation: $γ(z)\approxγ_0+γ_0^\prime z $, we find that, for $0.2\leqΩ_{m,0}\leq0.35$, $γ_0$ takes the value from 0.658 to 0.671, and $γ_0^\prime$ ranges from 0.035 to 0.042. With three low redshift observational data of the growth factor, we obtain the observational constraints on $γ_0$ and $γ_0'$ for the $ΛCDM$ and DGP models and find that the observations favor the $ΛCDM$ model but at the $1σ$ confidence level both the $ΛCDM$ and DGP models are consistent with the observations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2009

Quantum Lightcone Fluctuations in Compactified Spacetimes

We treat the effects of compactified spatial dimensions on the propagation of light in the uncompactified directions in the context of linearized quantum gravity. We find that the flight times of pulses can fluctuate due to modification of the graviton vacuum by the compactification. In the case of a five dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory, the mean variation in flight time can grow logarithmically with the flight distance. This effect is in principle observable, but too small to serve as a realistic probe of the existence of extra dimensions. We also examine the effect of the compactification on the widths of spectral lines, and find that there is a small line narrowing effect. This effect is also small for compactification well above the Planck scale, but might serve as a test of the existence of extra dimensions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Dynamics of interacting phantom scalar field dark energy in Loop Quantum Cosmology

We study the dynamics of a phantom scalar field dark energy interacting with dark matter in loop quantum cosmology (LQC). Two kinds of coupling of the form $α{ρ_m}{\dotϕ}$ (case I) and $3βH (ρ_ϕ+ρ_m)$ (case II) between the phantom energy and dark matter are examined with the potential for the phantom field taken to be exponential. For both kinds of interactions, we find that the future singularity appearing in the standard FRW cosmology can be avoided by loop quantum gravity effects. In case II, if the phantom field is initially rolling down the potential, the loop quantum effect has no influence on the cosmic late time evolution and the universe will accelerate forever with a constant energy ratio between the dark energy and dark matter.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Brownian motion of a charged test particle driven by vacuum fluctuations near a dielectric half-space

We study the Brownian motion of a charged test particle driven by quantum electromagnetic fluctuations in the vacuum region near a non-dispersive and non-absorbing dielectric half-space and calculate the mean squared fluctuations in the velocity of the test particle. Our results show that a nonzero susceptibility of the dielectrics has its imprints on the velocity dispersions of the test particles. The most noteworthy feature in sharp contrast to the case of an idealized perfectly conducting interface is that the velocity dispersions in the parallel directions are no longer negative and does not die off in time, suggesting that the potentially problematic negativeness of the dispersions in those directions in the case of perfect conductors is just a result of our idealization and does not occur for real material boundaries.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Understanding Hawking radiation in the framework of open quantum systems

We study the Hawking radiation in the framework of open quantum systems by examining the time evolution of a detector (modelled by a two-level atom) interacting with vacuum massless scalar fields. The dynamics of the detector is governed by a master equation obtained by tracing over the field degrees of freedom from the complete system. The nonunitary effects are studied by analyzing the time behavior of a particular observable of the detector, i.e., its admissible state, in the Unruh, Hartle-Hawking, as well as Boulware vacua outside a Schwarzschild black hole. We find that the detector in both the Unruh and Hartle-Hawking vacua would spontaneously excite with a nonvanishing probability the same as what one would obtain if there is thermal radiation at the Hawking temperature from the black hole, thus reproducing the basic results concerning the Hawking effect in the framework of open quantum systems.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Probing the cosmic acceleration history and the properties of dark energy from the ESSENCE supernova data with a model independent method

With a model independent method the expansion history $H(z)$, the deceleration parameter $q(z)$ of the universe and the equation of state $w(z)$ for the dark energy are reconstructed directly from the 192 Sne Ia data points, which contain the new ESSENCE Sne Ia data and the high redshift Sne Ia data. We find that the evolving properties of $q(z)$ and $w(z)$ reconstructed from the 192 Sne Ia data seem to be weaker than that obtained from the Gold set, but stronger than that from the SNLS set. With a combination of the 192 Sne Ia and BAO data, a tight constraint on $Ω_{m0}$ is obtained. At the $1σ$ confidence level $Ω_{m0}=0.278^{+0.024}_{-0.023}$, which is highly consistent with that from the Gold+BAO and SNLS+BAO.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and spontaneous excitation of atoms

We consider, in de Sitter spacetime, both freely falling and static two-level atoms in interaction with a conformally coupled massless scalar field in the de Sitter-invariant vacuum, and separately calculate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the atom's spontaneous excitation rate. We find that spontaneous excitations occur even for the freely falling atom as if there is a thermal bath of radiation at the Gibbons-Hawking temperature and we thus recover, in a different physical context, the results of Gibbons and Hawking that reveals the thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime. Similarly, for the case of the static atom, our results show that the atom also perceives a thermal bath which now arises as a result of the intrinsic thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and the Unruh effect associated with the inherent acceleration of the atom.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Reconstructing the properties of dark energy from recent observations

We explore the properties of dark energy from recent observational data, including the Gold Sne Ia, the baryonic acoustic oscillation peak from SDSS, the CMB shift parameter from WMAP3, the X-ray gas mass fraction in cluster and the Hubble parameter versus redshift. The $ΛCDM$ model with curvature and two parameterized dark energy models are studied. For the $ΛCDM$ model, we find that the flat universe is consistent with observations at the $1σ$ confidence level and a closed universe is slightly favored by these data. For two parameterized dark energy models, with the prior given on the present matter density, $Ω_{m0}$, with $Ω_{m0}=0.24$, $Ω_{m0}=0.28$ and $Ω_{m0}=0.32$, our result seems to suggest that the trend of $Ω_{m0}$ dependence for an evolving dark energy from a combination of the observational data sets is model-dependent.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Relationship between Hawking radiation from black holes and spontaneous excitation of atoms

Using the formalism that separates the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy, we show that a two-level atom in interaction with a quantum massless scalar field both in the Hartle-Hawking and Unruh vacuum in a 1+1 dimensional black hole background spontaneously excites as if there is thermal radiation at the Hawking temperature emanating from the black hole. Our calculation, therefore, ties the existence of Hawking radiation to the spontaneous excitation of a two-level atom placed in vacuum in the exterior of a black hole and shows pleasing consistence of two different physical phenomena, the Hawking radiation and the spontaneous excitation of atoms, which are quite prominent in their own right.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Do static atoms outside a Schwarzschild black hole spontaneously excite?

The spontaneous excitation of a two-level atom held static outside a four dimensional Schwarzschild black hole and in interaction with a massless scalar field in the Boulware, Unruh and Hartle-Hawking vacuum is investigated and the contributions of the vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy are calculated separately. We find that for the Boulware vacuum, the spontaneous excitation does not occur and the ground state atoms are stable, while the spontaneous emission rate for excited atoms in the Boulware vacuum, which is well-behaved at the event horizon, is not the same as that in the usual Minkowski vacuum. However, both for the Unruh vacuum and the Hartle-Hawking vacuum, our results show that the atom would spontaneously excite, as if there were an outgoing thermal flux of radiation or as if it were in a thermal bath of radiation at a proper temperature which reduces to the Hawking temperature in the spatial asymptotic region, depending on whether the scalar field is in the Unruh or Hartle-Hawking vacuum.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2007

The Unruh effect and entanglement generation for accelerated atoms near a reflecting boundary

We study, in the framework of open systems, the entanglement generation of two independent uniformly accelerated atoms in interaction with the vacuum fluctuations of massless scalar fields subjected to a reflecting plane boundary. We demonstrate that, with the presence of the boundary, the accelerated atoms exhibit distinct features from static ones in a thermal bath at the corresponding Unruh temperature in terms of the entanglement creation at the neighborhood of the initial time. In this sense, accelerated atoms in vacuum do not necessarily have to behave as if they were static in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature.

gr-qc↗