arXiv subjects

Masahiro Kawasaki

Publications and source records attributed to Masahiro Kawasaki.

At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

Affleck-Dine baryogenesis in anomaly-mediated SUSY breaking

It has been known that in anomaly-mediated SUSY breaking model Affleck-Dine baryogenesis does not work due to trapping of Affleck-Dine field into charge-breaking minima. We show that when finite-temperature effect is properly taken into account and if reheating temperature is relatively high, the problem of falling into charge breaking global minima can be avoided and hence Affleck-Dine baryogenesis works. Moreover, for the LH_u flat direction we obtain a constraint on the mass of neutrino.

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arXiv2006

Late-time Affleck-Dine baryogenesis after thermal inflation

Thermal inflation can solve serious cosmological problems such as overproduction of gravitinos and moduli. However, it also dilutes the preexisting baryon asymmetry. We investigate a possibility that Affleck-Dine mechanism works after thermal inflation and generate the baryon number at an acceptable level using lattice calculation. We find that a proper amount of baryon number can be generated for appropriate model parameters.

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arXiv2006

The Gravitino-Overproduction Problem in Inflaton Decay

We show that the gravitino-overproduction problem is prevalent among inflation models in supergravity. An inflaton field generically acquires (effective) non-vanishing auxiliary field, if the Kahler potential is non-minimal. The inflaton field then decays into a pair of the gravitinos, thereby severely constraining many of the inflation models especially in the case of the gravity-mediated SUSY breaking.

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arXiv2006

Primordial Helium Abundance: A Reanalysis of the Izotov-Thuan Spectroscopic Sample

A reanalysis is made for the helium abundance determination for the Izotov-Thuan (2004) spectroscopic sample of extragalactic H II regions. We find that the effect of underlying stellar absorption of the He I lines, which is more important for metal poor systems, affects significantly the inferred primordial helium abundance $Y_p$ obtained in the zero metallicity limit and the slope of linear extrapolation, $dY/dZ$. This brings $Y_p$ from $0.234\pm0.004$ to $0.250\pm 0.004$ and $dY/dZ=4.7\pm 1.0$ to $1.1\pm 1.4$. Conservatively, this indicates the importance of the proper understanding of underlying stellar absorption for accurate determinations of the primordial helium abundance to the error of $δY_p\simeq 0.002-0.004$.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2006

Inflaton Decay through Supergravity Effects

We point out that supergravity effects enable the inflaton to decay into all matter fields, including the visible and the supersymmetry breaking sectors, once the inflaton acquires a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value. The new decay processes have great impacts on cosmology; the reheating temperature is bounded below; the gravitinos are produced by the inflaton decay in a broad class of the dynamical supersymmetry breaking models. We derive the bounds on the inflaton mass and the vacuum expectation value, which severely constrain high-scale inflations such as the hybrid and chaotic inflation models.

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arXiv2006

Cosmological Constraints on Gravitino LSP Scenario with Sneutrino NLSP

We study the scenario where a sneutrino is the next lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) and decays into a gravitino and standard model particles. The daughter particles such as neutrinos and quarks cause electro- and hadronic showers and affect big-bang nucleosynthesis. It is found that despite a small branching ratio, four-body processes including quarks in the final state give the most stringent constraint on the sneutrino abundance for gravitino mass of 1 $-$ 100 GeV. Pion production by high energy neutrinos is important when the sneutrinos decay at $\sim$ 1 sec. We also discuss the thermal leptogenesis in the sneutrino NLSP scenario.

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arXiv2006

The Gravitino-Overproduction Problem in Inflationary Universe

We show that the gravitino-overproduction problem is prevalent among inflation models in supergravity. An inflaton field ϕgenerically acquires (effective) non-vanishing auxiliary field G_ϕ, if the Kähler potential is non-minimal. The inflaton field then decays into a pair of the gravitinos. We extensively study the cosmological constraints on G_ϕfor a wide range of the gravitino mass. For many inflation models we explicitly estimate G_ϕ, and show that the gravitino-overproduction problem severely constrains the inflation models, unless such an interaction as K = κ/2 |ϕ|^2 z^2 + h.c. is suppressed (here z is the field responsible for the supersymmetry breaking). We find that many of them are already excluded or on the verge of, if κ\sim O(1).

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arXiv2006

Towards the robustness of the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis

We study the Affleck-Dine mechanism with various types of the Kahler potential, and investigate whether or not the Affleck-Dine field could acquire a large VEV as an initial condition for successful baryogenesis. In addition to a negative Hubble-induced mass term, we find that large enough Hubble-induced A-terms could also develop the minimum at large amplitude of the field. Therefore, the Affleck-Dine mechanism works for broader classes of the theories.

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arXiv2006

Implication of Dark Energy Parametrizations on the Determination of the Curvature of the Universe

We investigate how the nature of dark energy affects the determination of the curvature of the universe from recent observations. For this purpose, we consider the constraints on the matter and dark energy density using observations of type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillation peak and cosmic microwave background with several types of dark energy equation of state. Although it is usually said that the combination of current observations favors a flat universe, we found that a relatively large parameter space allows the universe to be open for a particular model of dark energy. We also discuss what kind of dark energy model or prior allow a non-flat universe.

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arXiv2006

CMB constraints on the fine structure constant

We study constraints on time variation of the fine structure constant alpha from cosmic microwave background (CMB) taking into account simultaneous change in alpha and the electron mass m_e which might be implied in unification theories. We obtain the constraints -0.097 < Delta alpha/alpha < 0.034 at 95% C.L. using WMAP data only, and -0.042 < Delta alpha/alpha < 0.026 combining with the constraint on the Hubble parameter by the HST Hubble Key Project. These are improved by 15% compared with constraints assuming only alpha varies. We discuss other relations between variations in alpha and m_e but we do not find evidence for varying alpha.

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arXiv2006

Limit on the Neutrino Mass from the WMAP Three Year Data

We derive an upper limit on the neutrino mass from the WMAP three-year data alone by employing a deterministic minimisation method based on a grid search in multi-parameter space. Assuming the flat LCDM model with power-law adiabatic perturbations, we find the sum of m_nu < 2.0 eV in agreement with the result of the WMAP team. This result, the limit being nearly the same as that from the WMAP first-year data, means that the fundamental limit on the neutrino mass obtainable from the cosmic microwave background alone is already nearly met, as anticipated from the previous analysis. We also clarify the role of the polarisation data in deriving the limit on the neutrino mass.

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arXiv2006

Gravitino Overproduction in Inflaton Decay

Most of the inflation models end up with non-vanishing vacuum expectation values of the inflaton fields ϕin the true vacuum, which induce, in general, nonvanishing auxiliary field G_ϕfor the inflaton potential in supergravity. We show that the presence of nonzero G_ϕgives rise to inflaton decay into a pair of the gravitinos and are thereby severely constrained by cosmology especially if the gravitino is unstable and its mass is in a range of O(100) GeV \sim O(10) TeV. For several inflation models, we explicitly calculate the values of G_ϕand find that most of them are excluded or on the verge of being excluded for the gravitino mass in that range. We conclude that an inflation model with vanishing G_ϕ, typically realized in a chaotic inflation, is favored in a sense that it naturally avoids the potential gravitino overproduction problem.

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arXiv2006

511 keV line and diffuse gamma rays from moduli

We obtain the spectrum of gamma ray emissions from the moduli whose decay into $e^+ e^-$ accounts for the 511 keV line observed by SPI/INTERGRAL. The moduli emit gamma rays through internal bremsstrahlung, and also decay directly into two gammas via tree and/or one-loop diagrams. We show that the internal bremsstahlung constrains the mass of the moduli below $\sim 40$ MeV model-independently. On the other hand, the flux of two gammas directly decayed from the moduli through one loop diagrams will exceed the observed galactic diffuse gamma-ray background if the moduli mass exceeds $\sim 20$ MeV in the typical situation. Moreover, forthcoming analysis of SPI data in the range of 1-8 MeV may detect the line emisson with the energy half the moduli mass in the near future, which confirms the decaying moduli scenario.

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arXiv2005

The oscillation effects on thermalization of the neutrinos in the universe with low reheating temperature

We study how the oscillations of the neutrinos affect their thermalization process during the reheating period with temperature O(1) MeV in the early universe. We follow the evolution of the neutrino density matrices and investigate how the predictions of big bang nucleosynthesis vary with the reheating temperature. For the reheating temperature of several MeV, we find that including the oscillations makes different predictions, especially for $^4$He abundance. Also, the effects on the lower bound of the reheating temperature from cosmological observations are discussed.

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arXiv2005

Q-ball Instability due to U(1) Breaking

Q-ball is a non-topological soliton whose stability is ensured by global U(1) symmetry. We study a Q-ball which arises in the Affleck-Dine mechanism for baryogenesis and consider its possible instability due to U(1) breaking term ($A$-term) indispensable for successful baryogenesis. It is found that the instability destroys the Q-ball if its growth rate exceeds inverse of the typical relaxation time scale of the Q-ball. However, the instability is not so strong as it obstructs the cosmological formation of the Q-balls.

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arXiv2005

Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Hadronic Decay of Long-Lived Massive Particles

We study the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) with the long-lived exotic particle, called X. If the lifetime of X is longer than \sim 0.1 sec, its decay may cause non-thermal nuclear reactions during or after the BBN, altering the predictions of the standard BBN scenario. We pay particular attention to its hadronic decay modes and calculate the primordial abundances of the light elements. Using the result, we derive constraints on the primordial abundance of X. Compared to the previous studies, we have improved the following points in our analysis: The JETSET 7.4 Monte Carlo event generator is used to calculate the spectrum of hadrons produced by the decay of X; The evolution of the hadronic shower is studied taking account of the details of the energy-loss processes of the nuclei in the thermal bath; We have used the most recent observational constraints on the primordial abundances of the light elements; In order to estimate the uncertainties, we have performed the Monte Carlo simulation which includes the experimental errors of the cross sections and transfered energies. We will see that the non-thermal productions of D, He3, He4 and Li6 provide stringent upper bounds on the primordial abundance of late-decaying particle, in particular when the hadronic branching ratio of X is sizable. We apply our results to the gravitino problem, and obtain upper bound on the reheating temperature after inflation.

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arXiv2005

Constraining Neutrino Masses by CMB Experiments Alone

It is shown that a subelectronvolt upper limit can be derived on the neutrino mass from the CMB data alone in the Lambda CDM model with the power-law adiabatic perturbations, without the aid of any other cosmological data. Assuming the flatness of the universe, the constraint we can derive from the current WMAP observations is \sum m_nu < 2.0 eV at the 95% confidence level for the sum over three species of neutrinos (m_nu < 0.66 eV for the degenerate neutrinos). This constraint modifies little even if we abandon the flatness assumption for the spatial curvature. We argue that it would be difficult to improve the limit much beyond \sum m_nu \lesssim 1.5 eV using only the CMB data, even if their statistics are substantially improved. However, a significant improvement of the limit is possible if an external input is introduced that constrains the Hubble constant from below. The parameter correlation and the mechanism of CMB perturbations that give rise to the limit on the neutrino mass are also elucidated.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Late-time entropy production due to the decay of domain walls

It is shown that late-time decay of domain walls can dilute unwanted relics such as moduli, if the universe was dominated by frustrated domain walls with tension $σ= (1 - 100 TeV)^3$. Since energy density of the frustrated domain walls decreases as slow as the inverse of the scale factor, an overclosure limit on the axion decay constant $f_a$ is also considerably relaxed. In fact $f_a$ can be as large as the Planck scale, which may enable us to naturally implement the QCD axion in the string scheme. Furthermore, in contrast to thermal inflation models, the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis can generate enough asymmetry to explain the present baryon abundance, even in the presence of late-time entropy production.

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