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Lawrence M. Krauss

Publications and source records attributed to Lawrence M. Krauss.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2009

Implications of Broken Symmetry for Superhorizon Conservation Theorems in Cosmology

Inflation produces super-horizon sized perturbations that ultimately return within the horizon and are thought to form the seeds of all observed large scale structure in the Universe. But inflationary predictions can only be compared with present day observations if, as conventional wisdom dictates, they remain unpolluted by subsequent sub-horizon causal physical processes and therefore remain immune from the vicissitudes of unknown universal dynamics in the intervening period. Here we demonstrate that conventional wisdom need not be correct, and as a result cosmological signatures arising from intervening unknown non-inflationary processes may confuse the interpretation of observational data today.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2009

CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Probing Inflation with CMB Polarization

We summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of inflation. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurements to differentiate various inflationary mechanisms. In particular, a detection of primordial B-mode polarization would demonstrate that inflation occurred at a very high energy scale, and that the inflaton traversed a super-Planckian distance in field space. We explain how such a detection or constraint would illuminate aspects of physics at the Planck scale. Moreover, CMB measurements can constrain the scale-dependence and non-Gaussianity of the primordial fluctuations and limit the possibility of a significant isocurvature contribution. Each such limit provides crucial information on the underlying inflationary dynamics. Finally, we quantify these considerations by presenting forecasts for the sensitivities of a future satellite experiment to the inflationary parameters.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Replacing Anthropy with entropy: Does it work?

Probably not, because there are lots of manifestly unanthropic ways of producing entropy. We demonstrate that the Causal Entropic Principle (CEP), as a replacement for the anthropic principle to explain the properties of the observed universe, suffers from many of the same problems of adopting myopic assumptions in order to predict that various fundamental parameters take approximately the observed values. In particular, we demonstrate that four mechanisms -- black hole production, black hole decay, phase transitions, and dark matter annihilations or decays -- will manifestly change the conclusions of the CEP to predict that we should live in a universe quite different than the one in which we find ourselves.

hep-th↗
arXiv2008

CMBPol Mission Concept Study: A Mission to Map our Origins

Quantum mechanical metric fluctuations during an early inflationary phase of the universe leave a characteristic imprint in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The amplitude of this signal depends on the energy scale at which inflation occurred. Detailed observations by a dedicated satellite mission (CMBPol) therefore provide information about energy scales as high as $10^{15}$ GeV, twelve orders of magnitude greater than the highest energies accessible to particle accelerators, and probe the earliest moments in the history of the universe. This summary provides an overview of a set of studies exploring the scientific payoff of CMBPol in diverse areas of modern cosmology, such as the physics of inflation, gravitational lensing and cosmic reionization, as well as foreground science and removal .

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Late Time Decay of the False Vacuum, Measurement, and Quantum Cosmology

The recent suggestion that late time quantum dynamics may be important for resolving cosmological issues associated with our observed universe requires a consideration of several subtle issues associated with quantum cosmology, as we describe here. The resolution of these issues will be important if we are to be able to properly ascribe probability measures associated with eternal inflation, and a string landscape.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2008

The Impact of Prior Assumptions on Bayesian Estimates of Inflation Parameters and the Expected Gravitational Waves Signal from Inflation

There has been much recent discussion, and some confusion, regarding the use of existing observational data to estimate the likelihood that next-generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments might detect a nonzero tensor signal, possibly associated with inflation. We examine this issue in detail here in two different ways: (1) first we explore the effect of choice of different parameter priors on the estimation of the tensor-to-scalar ratio r and other parameters describing inflation, and (2) we examine the Bayesian complexity in order to determine how effectively existing data can constrain inflationary parameters. We demonstrate that existing data are not strong enough to render full inflationary parameter estimates in a parametrization- and prior-independent way and that the predicted tensor signal is particularly sensitive to different priors. For parametrizations where the Bayesian complexity is comparable to the number of free parameters we find that a flat prior on the scale of inflation (which is to be distinguished from a flat prior on the tensor-to-scalar ratio) leads us to infer a larger, and in fact slightly nonzero tensor contribution at 68% confidence level. However, no detection is claimed. Our results demonstrate that all that is statistically relevant at the current time is the (slightly enhanced) upper bound on r, and we stress that the data remain consistent with r = 0.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

A Nearly Scale Invariant Spectrum of Gravitational Radiation from Global Phase Transitions

Using a large N sigma model approximation we explicitly calculate the power spectrum of gravitational waves arising from a global phase transition in the early universe and we confirm that it is scale invariant, implying an observation of such a spectrum may not be a unique feature of inflation. Moreover, the predicted amplitude can be over 3 orders of magnitude larger than the naive dimensional estimate, implying that even a transition that occurs after inflation may dominate in Cosmic Microwave Background polarization or other gravity wave signals.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Reply to Comment on "Drip Paintings and Fractal Analysis" by Micolich et al (arXiv:0712.165v1 [cond-mat.stat-mech])

We reply to the comment of Micolich et al and demonstrate that their criticisms are unfounded. In particular we provide a detailed discussion of our box-counting algorithm and of the interpretation of multi-layered paintings. We point out that in their entire body of work, Taylor et al have not provided the scientific community with sufficient empirical support of their claims, nor have they adequately addressed any of the problems we have identified with the application of fractal analysis to drip paintings.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2007

The Late Time Behavior of False Vacuum Decay: Possible Implications for Cosmology and Metastable Inflating States

We describe here how the late time behavior of the decaying states, which is predicted to deviate from an exponential form, while normally of insignificant consequence, may have important cosmological implications in the case of false vacuum decay. It may increase the likelihood of eternal inflation, and may help explain the likelihood of observing a small vacuum energy at late times, as well as arguing against decay into a large negative energy (anti-de Sitter space), vacuum state as has been motivated by some string theory considerations. Several interesting open questions are raised, including whether observing the cosmological configuration of a metastable universe can constrain its inferred lifetime.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2007

Drip Paintings and Fractal Analysis

It has been claimed [1-6] that fractal analysis can be applied to unambiguously characterize works of art such as the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. This academic issue has become of more general interest following the recent discovery of a cache of disputed Pollock paintings. We definitively demonstrate here, by analyzing paintings by Pollock and others, that fractal criteria provide no information about artistic authenticity. This work has also led to two new results in fractal analysis of more general scientific significance. First, the composite of two fractals is not generally scale invariant and exhibits complex multifractal scaling in the small distance asymptotic limit. Second the statistics of box-counting and related staircases provide a new way to characterize geometry and distinguish fractals from Euclidean objects.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2007

The Return of a Static Universe and the End of Cosmology

We demonstrate that as we extrapolate the current $Λ$CDM universe forward in time, all evidence of the Hubble expansion will disappear, so that observers in our "island universe" will be fundamentally incapable of determining the true nature of the universe, including the existence of the highly dominant vacuum energy, the existence of the CMB, and the primordial origin of light elements. With these pillars of the modern Big Bang gone, this epoch will mark the end of cosmology and the return of a static universe. In this sense, the coordinate system appropriate for future observers will perhaps fittingly resemble the static coordinate system in which the de Sitter universe was first presented.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Observation of Incipient Black Holes and the Information Loss Problem

We study the formation of black holes by spherical domain wall collapse as seen by an asymptotic observer, using the functional Schrodinger formalism. To explore what signals such observers will see, we study radiation of a scalar quantum field in the collapsing domain wall background. The total energy flux radiated diverges when backreaction of the radiation on the collapsing wall is ignored, and the domain wall is seen by the asymptotic observer to evaporate by non-thermal ``pre-Hawking radiation'' during the collapse process. Evaporation by pre-Hawking radiation implies that an asymptotic observer can never lose objects down a black hole. Together with the non-thermal nature of the radiation, this may resolve the black hole information loss problem.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2007

Cosmic Deconstructionism

Dark Matter that is composed of WIMP remnants of incomplete particle-antiparticle annihilation in the early universe experiences ongoing annihilation in gravitationally bound large scale structure. This annihilation will have important consequences in the perhaps distant cosmic future, as the annihilation time-scale becomes comparable to the age of the universe. Much of large scale structure, from galaxy satellites to galaxy clusters will disappear.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Dark Matter Candidates: What Cold, ..and What's Not

In this brief review of recent theoretical developments associated with the search for dark matter I describe the following: why baryons are now ruled out as dark matter candidates; SUSY WIMPS and signatures in the MSSM and NMSSM why claimed indirect signatures are probably not WIMP related, why axions may be of new interest, how WIMP detection might tell us about the galactic halo, and how theorists are preparing to avoid the next generation of experimental constraints.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2007

Dark Energy, A Cosmological Constant, and Type Ia Supernovae

We focus on uncertainties in supernova measurements, in particular of individual magnitudes and redshifts, to review to what extent supernovae measurements of the expansion history of the universe are likely to allow us to constrain a possibly redshift-dependent equation of state of dark energy, $w(z)$. focus in particular on the central question of how well one might rule out the possibility of a cosmological constant $w=-1$. We argue that it is unlikely that we will be able to significantly reduce the uncertainty in the determination of $w$ beyond its present bounds, without significant improvements in our ability to measure the cosmic distance scale as a function of redshift. Thus, unless the dark energy significantly deviates from $w(z)=-1$ at some redshift, very stringent control of the statistical and systematic errors will be necessary to have a realistic hope of empirically distinguishing exotic dark energy from a cosmological constant.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2006

Indirect detection of light neutralino dark matter in the NMSSM

We explore the prospects for indirect detection of neutralino dark matter in supersymmetric models with an extended Higgs sector (NMSSM). We compute, for the first time, one-loop amplitudes for NMSSM neutralino pair annihilation into two photons and two gluons, and point out that extra diagrams (with respect to the MSSM), featuring a potentially light CP-odd Higgs boson exchange, can strongly enhance these radiative modes. Expected signals in neutrino telescopes due to the annihilation of relic neutralinos in the Sun and in the Earth are evaluated, as well as the prospects of detection of a neutralino annihilation signal in space-based gamma-ray, antiproton and positron search experiments, and at low-energy antideuteron searches. We find that in the low mass regime the signals from capture in the Earth are enhanced compared to the MSSM, and that NMSSM neutralinos have a remote possibility of affecting solar dynamics. Also, antimatter experiments are an excellent probe of galactic NMSSM dark matter. We also find enhanced two photon decay modes that make the possibility of the detection of a monochromatic gamma-ray line within the NMSSM more promising than in the MSSM.

hep-ph↗