arXiv subjects

Juan Carlos Hidalgo

Publications and source records attributed to Juan Carlos Hidalgo.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Non-comoving baryons and cold dark matter in cosmic voids

We examine the fully relativistic evolution of cosmic voids constituted by baryons and cold dark matter (CDM), represented by two non-comoving dust sources in a $Λ$CDM background. For this purpose, we consider numerical solutions of Einstein's field equations in a fluid-flow representation adapted to spherical symmetry and multiple components. We present a simple example that explores the frame-dependence of the local expansion and the Hubble flow for this mixture of two dusts, revealing that the relative velocity between the sources yields a significantly different evolution in comparison with that of the two sources in a common 4-velocity (which reduces to a Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi model). In particular, significant modifications arise for the density contrast depth and void size, as well as in the amplitude of the surrounding over-densities. We show that an adequate model of a frame-dependent evolution that incorporates initial conditions from peculiar velocities and large-scale density contrast observations may contribute to understand the discrepancy between the local value of $H_0$ and that inferred from the CMB.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Mixed constraints to inflationary models

We show how to constrain inflationary models and reheating by using mixed constraints. In particular we study the physics of the reheating phase after inflation from observational constraints to the inflationary stage. We show that it is possible to determine $ω$, the equation of state during reheating, by using the reported values of the spectral index and the {\it full} number of $e$-folds $N(n_s,ω)= N_H(n_s)+N_{re}(n_s,w)\approx 60$, which includes the accelerated expansion and the reheating phase. We show that the reheating number of $e$-folds $N_{re}$ is quite sensitive to this equation of state. Requiring $N_{re}>0$ and a sensible value for the thermalization scale $T_{re}$, demands in general a reheating phase with $ω\neq 0$. We exemplify the constraints with two particular examples: We show how the Starobinsky model allows only large values of $T_{re}$ if the reheating phase is dominated by dust ($w =0$), and if Primordial Black Hole production is subdominant. For the case of $N=1$ Supergravity inflation, the extra parameter of the potential provides the necessary freedom to afford lower-scale thermalization in a dust-like reheating phase and yet our method serves to determine the rest of the observable parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Black hole formation from the gravitational collapse of a non-spherical network of structures

We examine the gravitational collapse and black hole formation of multiple non--spherical configurations constructed from Szekeres dust models with positive spatial curvature that smoothly match to a Schwarzschild exterior. These configurations are made of an almost spherical central core region surrounded by a network of "pancake-like" overdensities and voids with spatial positions prescribed through standard initial conditions. We show that a full collapse into a focusing singularity, without shell crossings appearing before the formation of an apparent horizon, is not possible unless the full configuration becomes exactly or almost spherical. Seeking for black hole formation, we demand that shell crossings are covered by the apparent horizon. This requires very special fine-tuned initial conditions that impose very strong and unrealistic constraints on the total black hole mass and full collapse time. As a consequence, non-spherical non-rotating dust sources cannot furnish even minimally realistic toy models of black hole formation at astrophysical scales: demanding realistic collapse time scales yields huge unrealistic black hole masses, while simulations of typical astrophysical black hole masses collapse in unrealistically small times. We note, however, that the resulting time--mass constraint is compatible with early Universe models of primordial black hole formation, suitable in early dust-like environments. Finally, we argue that the shell crossings appearing when non-spherical dust structures collapse are an indicator that such structures do not form galactic mass black holes but virialise into stable stationary objects.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Theoretical and observational constraints on Tachyon Inflation

We constrain several models in Tachyonic Inflation derived from the large-$N$ formalism by considering theoretical aspects as well as the latest observational data. On the theoretical side, we assess the field range of our models by means of the excursion of the equivalent canonical field. On the observational side, we employ BK14+PLANCK+BAO data to perform a parameter estimation analysis as well as a Bayesian model selection to distinguish the most favoured models among all four classes here presented. We observe that the original potential $V \propto \textrm{sech}(T)$ is strongly disfavoured by observations with respect to a reference model with flat priors on inflationary observables. This realisation of Tachyon inflation also presents a large field range which may demand further quantum corrections. We also provide examples of potentials derived from the polynomial and the perturbative classes which are both statistically favoured and theoretically acceptable.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

General bounds in Hybrid Natural Inflation

Recently we have studied in great detail a model of Hybrid Natural Inflation (HNI) by constructing two simple effective field theories. These two versions of the model allow inflationary energy scales as small as the electroweak scale in one of them or as large as the Grand Unification scale in the other, therefore covering the whole range of possible energy scales. In any case the inflationary sector of the model is of the form $V(ϕ)=V_0 \left(1+a \cos(ϕ/f)\right)$ where $0\leq a<1$ and the end of inflation is triggered by an independent waterfall field. One interesting characteristic of this model is that the slow-roll parameter $ε(ϕ)$ is a non-monotonic function of $ϕ$ presenting a {\it maximum} close to the inflection point of the potential. Because the scalar spectrum $\mathcal{P}_s(k)$ of density fluctuations when written in terms of the potential is inversely proportional to $ε(ϕ)$ we find that $\mathcal{P}_s(k)$ presents a {\it minimum} at $ϕ_{min}$. The origin of the HNI potential can be traced to a symmetry breaking phenomenon occurring at some energy scale $f$ which gives rise to a (massless) Goldstone boson. Non-perturbative physics at some temperature $T<f$ might occur which provides a potential (and a small mass) to the originally massless boson to become the inflaton (a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson). Thus the inflaton energy scale $Δ$ is bounded by the symmetry breaking scale, $Δ\equiv V_H^{1/4} <f.$ To have such a well defined origin and hierarchy of scales in inflationary models is not common. We use this property of HNI to determine bounds for the inflationary energy scale $Δ$ and for the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Collapse threshold for a cosmological Klein Gordon field

Oscillating scalar fields are useful to model a variety of matter components in the universe. One or more scalar fields participate in the reheating process after inflation, while at much lower energies scalar fields are robust dark matter candidates. Pertaining structure formation in these models, it is well known that inhomogeneities of the Klein-Gordon field are unstable above the characteristic De Broglie wavelength. In this paper we show that such instability implies the existence of a threshold amplitude for the collapse of primordial fluctuations. We use this threshold to correctly predict the cut--off scale of the matter power spectrum in the scalar field dark matter model. Furthermore, for a Klein-Gordon field during reheating we show that this same threshold allows for abundant production of structure (oscillons but not necessarily black holes). Looking at the production of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) in this scenario we note that the sphericity condition yields a much lower probability of PBH formation at the end of inflation. Remarkably, even after meeting such stringent condition, we find that PBHs may be overproduced during reheating. We finally constrain the epochs at which an oscillating Klein-Gordon field could dominate the early universe.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Non-Spherical Szekeres models in the language of Cosmological Perturbations

We study the differences and equivalences between the non-perturbative description of the evolution of cosmic structure furnished by the Szekeres dust models (a non-spherical exact solution of Einstein's equations) and the dynamics of Cosmological Perturbation Theory (CPT) for dust sources in a $Λ$CDM background. We show how the dynamics of Szekeres models can be described by evolution equations given in terms of "exact fluctuations" that identically reduce (at all orders) to evolution equations of CPT in the comoving isochronous gauge. We explicitly show how Szekeres linearised exact fluctuations are specific (deterministic) realisations of standard linear perturbations of CPT given as random fields but, as opposed to the latter perturbations, they can be evolved exactly into the full non-linear regime. We prove two important results: (i) the conservation of the curvature perturbation (at all scales) also holds for the appropriate approximation of the exact Szekeres fluctuations in a $Λ$CDM background, and (ii) the different collapse morphologies of Szekeres models yields, at nonlinear order, different functional forms for the growth factor that follows from the study of redshift space distortions. The metric based potentials used in linear CPT are computed in terms of the parameters of the linearised Szekeres models, thus allowing us to relate our results to linear CPT results in other gauges. We believe that these results provide a solid starting stage to examine the role of non-perturbative General Relativity in current cosmological research.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Canonical single field slow-roll inflation with a non-monotonic tensor-to-scalar ratio

We take a pragmatic, model independent approach to single field slow-roll canonical inflation by imposing conditions, not on the potential, but on the slow-roll parameter $ε(ϕ)$ and its derivatives $ε^{\prime }(ϕ)$ and $ε^{\prime\prime }(ϕ)$, thereby extracting general conditions on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the running $n_{sk}$ at $ϕ_{H}$ where the perturbations are produced, some $50$ $-$ $60$ $e$-folds before the end of inflation. We find quite generally that for models where $ε(ϕ)$ develops a maximum, a relatively large $r$ is most likely accompanied by a positive running while a negligible tensor-to-scalar ratio implies negative running. The definitive answer, however, is given in terms of the slow-roll parameter $ξ_2(ϕ)$. To accommodate a large tensor-to-scalar ratio that meets the limiting values allowed by the Planck data, we study a non-monotonic $ε(ϕ)$ decreasing during most part of inflation. Since at $ϕ_{H}$ the slow-roll parameter $ε(ϕ)$ is increasing, we thus require that $ε(ϕ)$ develops a maximum for $ϕ> ϕ_{H}$ after which $ε(ϕ)$ decrease to small values where most $e$-folds are produced. The end of inflation might occur trough a hybrid mechanism and a small field excursion $Δϕ_e\equiv |ϕ_H-ϕ_e |$ is obtained with a sufficiently thin profile for $ε(ϕ)$ which, however, should not conflict with the second slow-roll parameter $η(ϕ)$. As a consequence of this analysis we find bounds for $Δϕ_e$, $r_H$ and for the scalar spectral index $n_{sH}$. Finally we provide examples where these considerations are explicitly realised.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Coarse-grained description of cosmic structure from Szekeres models

We show that the full dynamical freedom of the well known Szekeres models allows for the description of elaborated 3--dimensional networks of cold dark matter structures (over--densities and/or density voids) undergoing "pancake" collapse. By reducing Einstein's field equations to a set of evolution equations, which themselves reduce in the linear limit to evolution equations for linear perturbations, we determine the dynamics of such structures, with the spatial comoving location of each structure uniquely specified by standard early Universe initial conditions. By means of a representative example we examine in detail the density contrast, the Hubble flow and peculiar velocities of structures that evolved, from linear initial data at the last scattering surface, to fully non--linear 10--20 Mpc. scale configurations today. To motivate further research, we provide a qualitative discussion on the connection of Szekeres models with linear perturbations and the pancake collapse of the Zeldovich approximation. This type of structure modelling provides a coarse grained -- but fully relativistic non--linear and non--perturbative -- description of evolving large scale cosmic structures before their virialisation, and as such it has an enormous potential for applications in cosmological research.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Second-order cosmological perturbation theory and initial conditions for $N$-body simulations

We use gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory to calculate the displacement field that sets the initial conditions for $N$-body simulations. Using first and second-order fully relativistic perturbation theory in the synchronous-comoving gauge, allows us to go beyond the Newtonian predictions and to calculate relativistic corrections to it. We use an Einstein--de Sitter model, including both growing and decaying modes in our solutions. The impact of our results should be assessed through the implementation of the featured displacement in cosmological $N$-body simulations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Tachyon inflation in the Large-$N$ formalism

We study tachyon inflation within the large-$N$ formalism, which takes a prescription for the small Hubble flow slow--roll parameter $ε_1$ as a function of the large number of $e$-folds $N$. This leads to a classification of models through their behaviour at large $N$. In addition to the perturbative $N$ class, we introduce the polynomial and exponential classes for the $ε_1$ parameter. With this formalism we reconstruct a large number of potentials used previously in the literature for Tachyon Inflation. We also obtain new families of potentials form the polynomial class. We characterize the realizations of Tachyon Inflation by computing the usual cosmological observables up to second order in the Hubble flow slow--roll parameters. This allows us to look at observable differences between tachyon and canonical single field inflation. The analysis of observables in light of the Planck 2015 data shows the viability of some of these models, mostly for certain realization of the polynomial and exponential classes.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

On spherical dust fluctuations: the exact vs. the perturbative approach

We examine the relation between the dynamics of Lema\^ıtre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) dust models (with and without $Λ$) and the dynamics of dust perturbations in two of the more familiar formalisms used in cosmology: the metric based Cosmological Perturbation Theory (CPT) and the Covariant Gauge Invariant (GIC) perturbations. For this purpose we recast the evolution of LTB models in terms of a covariant and gauge invariant formalism of local and non-local "exact fluctuations " on a Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) background defined by suitable averages of covariant scalars. We examine the properties of these fluctuations, which can be defined for a confined comoving domain or for an asymptotic domain extending to whole time slices. In particular, the non-local density fluctuation provides a covariant and precise definition for the notion of the "density contrast ". We show that in their linear regime these LTB exact fluctuations (local and non-local) are fully equivalent to the conventional cosmological perturbations in the synchronous-comoving gauge of CPT and to GIC perturbations. As an immediate consequence, we show the time-invariance of the spatial curvature perturbation in a simple form. The present work may provide important theoretical connections between the exact and perturbative (linear or no-linear) approach to the dynamics of dust sources in General Relativity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Constraining Hybrid Natural Inflation with recent CMB data

We study the Hybrid Natural Inflation (HNI) model and some of its realisations in the light of recent CMB observations, mainly Planck temperature and WMAP-9 polarization, and compare with the recent release of BICEP2 dataset. The inflationary sector of HNI is essentially given by the potential $V(ϕ) = V_0(1+a\cos (\fracϕ{f} ) )$, where $a$ is a positive constant smaller or equal to one and $f$ is the scale of (pseudo Nambu-Goldstone) symmetry breaking. We show that to describe the HNI model realisations we only need two observables; the spectral index $n_s$, the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and a free parameter in the amplitude of the cosine function $a$. We find that in order to make the HNI model compatible with the BICEP2 observations, we require a large positive running of the spectra. We find that this could over-produce primordial black holes in the most consistent case of the model. This situation could be aleviated if, as recently argued, the BICEP2 data do not correspond to primordial gravitational waves.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Einstein's signature in cosmological large-scale structure

We show how the non-linearity of general relativity generates a characteristic non-Gaussian signal in cosmological large-scale structure that we calculate at all perturbative orders in a large scale limit. Newtonian gravity and general relativity provide complementary theoretical frameworks for modelling large-scale structure in $Λ$CDM cosmology; a relativistic approach is essential to determine initial conditions which can then be used in Newtonian simulations studying the non-linear evolution of the matter density. Most inflationary models in the very early universe predict an almost Gaussian distribution for the primordial metric perturbation, $ζ$. However, we argue that it is the Ricci curvature of comoving-orthogonal spatial hypersurfaces, $R$, that drives structure formation at large scales. We show how the non-linear relation between the spatial curvature, $R$, and the metric perturbation, $ζ$, translates into a specific non-Gaussian contribution to the initial comoving matter density that we calculate for the simple case of an initially Gaussian $ζ$. Our analysis shows the non-linear signature of Einstein's gravity in large-scale structure.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Discrete graviton spectrum from super-exponential cup potentials and their application to braneworld physics

Super-exponential warp factors have been proposed in the context of two-brane models to solve the gauge hierarchy problem of scales by using a compactification scale of the same order of the fundamental Planck scale, completely eliminating the hierarchy between the electroweak and the Planck scales. However, most of the so far studied families of braneworlds with super-exponential warp factors do not localize 4D gravity when one of the branes is sent to infinity. Recently a braneworld model generated by a canonical scalar field $ϕ$ minimally coupled to 5D gravity with a bulk cosmological constant was shown to localize 4D gravity and to be stable under linear tensorial and scalar perturbations. Here we present an explicit new solution for the latter braneworld configuration and study the dynamics of its tensorial perturbations: we find that they obey a Schrödinger-like equation with a well potential which possesses exponentially increasing walls (we call it the {\it cup potential}), yielding a {\it novel discrete spectrum} for the massive Kaluza-Klein (KK) tensorial excitations, despite the non-compact nature of the fifth dimension, and in contrast to the braneworld models proposed so far, where the mass spectrum of the KK modes is continuous, or at most mixed. Finally, the corrections to Newton's law coming from these massive KK modes are computed. Their novelty arises from the fact that these {\it KK excitations possess quantized masses and are bound to the brane}, however, they are all of the Planck mass order, leading to unreachable energy scales from the phenomenological viewpoint.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Testing Hybrid Natural Inflation with BICEP2

We analyse Hybrid Natural Inflation in view of the recent results for the tensor index reported by BICEP2. We find that it predicts a large running of the scalar spectrum which is potentially detectable by large scale structure and $21\, \mathrm{cm} $ observations. The running of the running is also relatively large becoming close to $10^{-2}$. Along the way, we find general consistency relations at which observables are subject if the slow-roll approximation is imposed. Failure to satisfy these equations by the values obtained for the observables in surveys would be a failure of the slow-roll approximation itself.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Formation of subhorizon black holes from preheating

We study the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) during the preheating stage that follows a chaotic inflationary phase. The scalar fields present in the process are evolved numerically using a modified version of the HLATTICE code. From the output of the numerical simulation, we compute the probability distribution of curvature fluctuations, paying particular attention to sub-horizon scales. We find that in some specific models these modes grow to large amplitudes developing highly non-Gaussian probability distributions. We then calculate PBH abundances using the standard Press-Schechter criterion and find that overproduction of PBHs is likely in some regions of the chaotic preheating parameter space.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Non-Gaussian initial conditions in $Λ$CDM: Newtonian, relativistic and primordial contributions

The goal of the present paper is to set initial conditions for structure formation at non-linear order, consistent with general relativity, while also allowing for primordial non-Gaussianity. We use the non-linear continuity and Raychauduri equations, which together with the non-linear energy constraint determine the evolution of the matter density fluctuation in general relativity. We solve this equations at first and second order in a perturbative expansion, recovering and extending previous results derived in the matter-dominated limit and in the Newtonian regime. We present a second-order solution for the comoving density contrast in a $Λ$CDM universe, identifying non-linear contributions coming from the Newtonian growing mode, primordial non-Gaussianity and intrinsic non-Gaussianity, due to the essential non-linearity of the relativistic constraint equations. We discuss the application of these results to initial conditions in N-body simulations, showing that relativistic corrections mimic a non-zero non-linear parameter $f_{\rm NL}$.

astro-ph.CO↗