arXiv subjects

Jose J. Blanco-Pillado

Publications and source records attributed to Jose J. Blanco-Pillado.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Effects on the CMB from Compactification Before Inflation

Many theories beyond the Standard Model include extra dimensions, though these have yet to be directly observed. In this work we consider the possibility of a compactification mechanism which both allows extra dimensions and is compatible with current observations. This compactification is predicted to leave a signature on the CMB by altering the amplitude of the low l multipoles, dependent on the amount of inflation. Recently discovered CMB anomalies at low multipoles may be evidence for this. In our model we assume the spacetime is the product of a four-dimensional spacetime and flat extra dimensions. Before the compactification, both the four-dimensional space- time and the extra dimensions can either be expanding or contracting independently. Taking into account physical constraints, we explore the observational consequences and the plausibility of these different models.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Bubbles of Nothing and Supersymmetric Compactifications

We investigate the non-perturbative stability of supersymmetric compactifications with respect to decay via a bubble of nothing. We show examples where this kind of instability is not prohibited by the spin structure, i.e., periodicity of fermions about the extra dimension. However, such "topologically unobstructed" cases do exhibit an extra-dimensional analog of the well-known Coleman-De Luccia suppression mechanism, which prohibits the decay of supersymmetric vacua. We demonstrate this explicitly in a four dimensional Abelian-Higgs toy model coupled to supergravity. The compactification of this model to $M_3 \times S_1$ presents the possibility of vacua with different windings for the scalar field. Away from the supersymmetric limit, these states decay by the formation of a bubble of nothing, dressed with an Abelian-Higgs vortex. We show how, as one approaches the supersymmetric limit, the circumference of the topologically unobstructed bubble becomes infinite, thereby preventing the realization of this decay. This demonstrates the dynamical origin of the decay suppression, as opposed to the more familiar argument based on the spin structure. We conjecture that this is a generic mechanism that enforces stability of any topologically unobstructed supersymmetric compactification.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Large Scale Power Suppression in a Multifield Landscape

Power suppression of the cosmic microwave background on the largest observable scales could provide valuable clues about the particle physics underlying inflation. Here we consider the prospect of power suppression in the context of the multifield landscape. Based on the assumption that our observable universe emerges from a tunnelling event and that the relevant features originate purely from inflationary dynamics, we find that the power spectrum not only contains information on single-field dynamics, but also places strong con- straints on all scalar fields present in the theory. We find that the simplest single-field models giving rise to power suppression do not generalise to multifield models in a straightforward way, as the resulting superhorizon evolution of the curvature perturbation tends to erase any power suppression present at horizon crossing. On the other hand, multifield effects do present a means of generating power suppression which to our knowledge has so far not been considered. We propose a mechanism to illustrate this, which we dub flume inflation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Cosmic string loop shapes

We analyze the shapes of cosmic string loops found in large-scale simulations of an expanding-universe string network. The simulation does not include gravitational back reaction, but we model that process by smoothing the loop using Lorentzian convolution. We find that loops at formation consist of generally straight segments separated by kinks. We do not see cusps or any cusp-like structure at the scale of the entire loop, although we do see very small regions of string that move with large Lorentz boosts. However, smoothing of the string almost always introduces two cusps on each loop. The smoothing process does not lead to any significant fragmentation of loops that were in non-self-intersecting trajectories before smoothing.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

The Initial State of a Primordial Anisotropic Stage of Inflation

We investigate the possibility that the inflationary period in the early universe was preceded by a primordial stage of strong anisotropy. In particular we focus on the simplest model of this kind, where the spacetime is described by a non-singular Kasner solution that quickly evolves into an isotropic de Sitter space, the so-called Kasner-de Sitter solution. The initial Big Bang singularity is replaced, in this case, by a horizon. We show that the extension of this metric to the region behind the horizon contains a timelike singularity which will be visible by cosmological observers. This makes it impossible to have a reliable prediction of the quantum state of the cosmological perturbations in the region of interest. In this paper we consider the possibility that this Kasner-de Sitter universe is obtained as a result of a quantum tunneling process effectively substituting the region behind the horizon by an anisotropic parent vacuum state, namely a $1+1$ dimensional spacetime compactified over an internal flat torus, $T_2$, which we take it to be of the form ${de Sitter}_2 \times T_2$ or ${Minkowski}_2 \times T_2$. As a first approximation to understand the effects of this anisotropic initial state, we compute the power spectrum of a massless scalar field in these backgrounds. In both cases, the spectrum converges at small scales to the isotropic scale invariant form and only present important deviations from it at the largest possible scales. We find that the decompactification scenario from $M_2 \times T_2$ leads to a suppressed and slightly anisotropic power spectrum at large scales which could be related to some of the anomalies present in the current CMB data. On the other hand, the spectrum of the universe with a $dS_2 \times T_2$ parent vacuum presents an enhancement in power at large scales not consistent with observations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Topological Defects from the Multiverse

Many theories of the early universe predict the existence of a multiverse where bubbles continuously nucleate giving rise to observers in their interior. In this paper, we point out that topological defects of several dimensionalities will also be produced in de Sitter like regions of the multiverse. In particular, defects could be spontaneously nucleated in our parent vacuum. We study the evolution of these defects as they collide with and propagate inside of our bubble. We estimate the present distribution of defects in the observable part of the universe. The expected number of such nearby defects turns out to be quite small, even for the highest nucleation rate. We also study collisions of strings and domain walls with our bubble in our past light cone. We obtain simulated full-sky maps of the loci of such collisions, and find their angular size distribution. Similarly to what happens in the case of bubble collisions, the prospect of detecting any collisions of our bubble with ambient defects is greatly enhanced in the case where the cosmological constant of our parent vacuum is much higher than the vacuum energy density during inflation in our bubble.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Supermassive Cosmic String Compactifications

The space-time dimensions transverse to a static straight cosmic string with a sufficiently large tension (supermassive cosmic strings) are compact and typically have a singularity at a finite distance form the core. In this paper, we discuss how the presence of multiple supermassive cosmic strings in the 4D Abelian-Higgs model can induce the spontaneous compactification of the transverse space and explicitly construct solutions where the gravitational background becomes regular everywhere. We discuss the embedding of this model in N=1 supergravity and show that some of these solutions are half-BPS, in the sense that they leave unbroken half of the supersymmetries of the model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

The number of cosmic string loops

Using recent simulation results, we provide the mass and speed spectrum of cosmic string loops. This is the quantity of primary interest for many phenomenological signatures of cosmic strings, and it can be accurately predicted using recently acquired detailed knowledge of the loop production function. We emphasize that gravitational smoothing of long strings does not play any role in determining the total number of existing loops. We derive a bound on the string tension imposed by recent constraints on the stochastic gravitational wave background from pulsar timing arrays, finding $Gμ\leq 2.8\times 10^{-9}$. We also provide a derivation of the Boltzmann equation for cosmic string loops in the language of differential forms.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Accidental Inflation in the Landscape

We study some aspects of fine tuning in inflationary scenarios within string theory flux compactifications and, in particular, in models of accidental inflation. We investigate the possibility that the apparent fine-tuning of the low energy parameters of the theory needed to have inflation can be generically obtained by scanning the values of the fluxes over the landscape. Furthermore, we find that the existence of a landscape of eternal inflation in this model provides us with a natural theory of initial conditions for the inflationary period in our vacuum. We demonstrate how these two effects work in a small corner of the landscape associated with the complex structure of the Calabi-Yau manifold P^4_[1,1,1,6,9] by numerically investigating the flux vacua of a reduced moduli space. This allows us to obtain the distribution of observable parameters for inflation in this mini-landscape directly from the fluxes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Bubbles from Nothing

Within the framework of flux compactifications, we construct an instanton describing the quantum creation of an open universe from nothing. The solution has many features in common with the smooth 6d bubble of nothing solutions discussed recently, where the spacetime is described by a 4d compactification of a 6d Einstein-Maxwell theory on S^2 stabilized by flux. The four-dimensional description of this instanton reduces to that of Hawking and Turok. The choice of parameters uniquely determines all future evolution, which we additionally find to be stable against bubble of nothing instabilities.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2011

Large parallel cosmic string simulations: New results on loop production

Using a new parallel computing technique, we have run the largest cosmic string simulations ever performed. Our results confirm the existence of a long transient period where a non-scaling distribution of small loops is produced at lengths depending on the initial correlation scale. As time passes, this initial population gives way to the true scaling regime, where loops of size approximately equal to one-twentieth the horizon distance become a significant component. We observe similar behavior in matter and radiation eras, as well as in flat space. In the matter era, the scaling population of large loops becomes the dominant component; we expect this to eventually happen in the other eras as well.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

A new parallel simulation technique

We develop a "semi-parallel" simulation technique suggested by Pretorius and Lehner, in which the simulation spacetime volume is divided into a large number of small 4-volumes which have only initial and final surfaces. Thus there is no two-way communication between processors, and the 4-volumes can be simulated independently without the use of MPI. This technique allows us to simulate much larger volumes than we otherwise could, because we are not limited by total memory size. No processor time is lost waiting for other processors. We compare a cosmic string simulation we developed using the semi-parallel technique with our previous MPI-based code for several test cases and find a factor of 2.6 improvement in the total amount of processor time required to accomplish the same job for strings evolving in the matter-dominated era.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2010

Decay of flux vacua to nothing

We construct instanton solutions describing the decay of flux compactifications of a $6d$ gauge theory by generalizing the Kaluza-Klein bubble of nothing. The surface of the bubble is described by a smooth magnetically charged solitonic brane whose asymptotic flux is precisely that responsible for stabilizing the 4d compactification. We describe several instances of bubble geometries for the various vacua occurring in a $6d$ Einstein-Maxwell theory namely, AdS_4 x S^2, R^{1,3} x S^2, and dS_4 x S^2. Unlike conventional solutions, the bubbles of nothing introduced here occur where a {\em two}-sphere compactification manifold homogeneously degenerates.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Bubbles of Nothing in Flux Compactifications

We construct a simple AdS_4 x S^1 flux compactification stabilized by a complex scalar field winding the extra dimension and demonstrate an instability via nucleation of a bubble of nothing. This occurs when the Kaluza -- Klein dimension degenerates to a point, defining the bubble surface. Because the extra dimension is stabilized by a flux, the bubble surface must be charged, in this case under the axionic part of the complex scalar. This smooth geometry can be seen as a de Sitter topological defect with asymptotic behavior identical to the pure compactification. We discuss how a similar construction can be implemented in more general Freund -- Rubin compactifications.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Observable effects of anisotropic bubble nucleation

Our universe may have formed via bubble nucleation in an eternally-inflating background. Furthermore, the background may have a compact dimension--the modulus of which tunnels out of a metastable minimum during bubble nucleation--which subsequently grows to become one of our three large spatial dimensions. Then the reduced symmetry of the background is equivalent to anisotropic initial conditions in our bubble universe. We compute the inflationary spectrum in such a scenario and, as a first step toward understanding the effects of anisotropy, project it onto spherical harmonics. The resulting spectrum exhibits anomalous multipole correlations, their relative amplitude set by the present curvature parameter, which extend to arbitrarily large multipole moments. This raises the possibility of future detection, if slow-roll inflation does not last too long within our bubble. A full understanding of the observational signal must account for the effects of background anisotropy on photon free streaming, and is left to future work.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Transdimensional Tunneling in the Multiverse

Topology-changing transitions between vacua of different effective dimensionality are studied in the context of a 6-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory. The landscape of this theory includes a $6d$ de Sitter vacuum ($dS_6$), a number of $dS_4 \times S_2$ and $AdS_4 \times S_2$ vacua, and a number of $AdS_2 \times S_4$ vacua. We find that compactification transitions $dS_6 \to AdS_2 \times S_4$ occur through the nucleation of electrically charged black hole pairs, and transitions from $dS_6$ to $dS_4 \times S_2$ and $AdS_4 \times S_2$ occur through the nucleation of magnetically charged spherical black branes. We identify the appropriate instantons and describe the spacetime structure resulting from brane nucleation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Monopole annihilation in cosmic necklaces

A sequence of two symmetry breaking transitions in the early universe may produce monopoles whose flux is confined into two strings each, which thus assemble into "necklaces" with monopoles as beads. Such "cosmic necklaces" have been proposed as a source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. We analyze the evolution of these systems and show that essentially all monopoles annihilate or leave the string at early times, after which cosmic necklaces evolve in a similar way to a network of ordinary cosmic strings. We investigate several modifications to the basic picture, but in nearly all cases we find that too few monopoles remain on the necklaces to produce any observable cosmic rays. There may be a small window for superconducting condensates to prevent annihilations, but only if both the string and the condensate scale are very high.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2009

Quantum Tunneling in Flux Compactifications

We identify instantons representing vacuum decay in a 6-dimensional toy model for string theory flux compactifications, with the two extra dimensions compactified on a sphere. We evaluate the instanton action for tunneling between different flux vacua, as well as for the decompactification decay channel. The bubbles resulting from flux tunneling have an unusual structure. They are bounded by two-dimensional branes, which are localized in the extra dimensions. This has important implications for bubble collisions.

hep-th↗