arXiv subjects

Masaki Yamada

Publications and source records attributed to Masaki Yamada.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Vacuum Decay in Real Time and Imaginary Time Formalisms

We analyze vacuum tunneling in quantum field theory in a general formalism by using the Wigner representation. In the standard instanton formalism, one usually approximates the initial false vacuum state by an eigenstate of the field operator, imposes Dirichlet boundary conditions on the initial field value, and evolves in imaginary time. This approach does not have an obvious physical interpretation. However, an alternative approach does have a physical interpretation: in quantum field theory, tunneling can happen via classical dynamics, seeded by initial quantum fluctuations in both the field and its momentum conjugate, which was recently implemented in Ref. [1]. We show that the Wigner representation is a useful framework to calculate and understand the relationship between these two approaches. We find there are two, related, saddle point approximations for the path integral of the tunneling process: one corresponds to the instanton solution in imaginary time and the other one corresponds to classical dynamics from initial quantum fluctuations in real time. The classical approximation for the dynamics of the latter process is justified only in a system with many degrees of freedom, as can appear in field theory due to high occupancy of nucleated bubbles, while it is not justified in single particle quantum mechanics, as we explain. We mention possible applications of the real time formalism, including tunneling when the instanton vanishes, or when the imaginary time contour deformation is not possible, which may occur in cosmological settings.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Unification for the Darkly Charged Dark Matter

We provide a simple UV theory for a Dirac dark matter with a massless Abelian gauge boson. We introduce a single fermion transforming as the $\bf{16}$ representation in the SO(10)$'$ gauge group, which is assumed to be spontaneously broken to SU(5)$'\times$U(1)$'$. The SU(5)$'$ gauge interaction becomes strong at an intermediate scale and then we obtain a light composite Dirac fermion with U(1)$'$ gauge interaction at the low-energy scale. Its thermal relic can explain the observed amount of dark matter consistently with other cosmological and astrophysical constraints. We discuss that a nonzero kinetic mixing between the U(1)$'$ gauge boson and the Hypercharge gauge boson is allowed and the temperature of the visible sector and the dark matter sector can be equal to each other.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Cosmic perturbations, baryon asymmetry and dark matter from the minimal supersymmetric standard model

Scalar fields in the minimal supersymmetric standard model may have large field values during inflation. Because of approximate global symmetry, it is plausible that the phase directions of them are nearly massless during inflation and obtain quantum fluctuations, which may be the origin of the cosmic perturbations. If perturbations are produced through Q-ball formation, baryon asymmetry and dark matter can be consistently generated. Significant baryon and dark matter isocurvature perturbations are produced, but they are predicted to nearly compensate each other. The lepton asymmetry is much larger than the baryon asymmetry. The scenario predicts local non-Gaussianity of $f_{\rm NL} = 5/3$. Implication to the mass spectrum of supersymmetric particles is discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Anthropic Bound on Dark Radiation and its Implications for Reheating

We derive an anthropic bound on the extra neutrino species, $ΔN_{\rm eff}$, based on the observation that a positive $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ suppresses the growth of matter fluctuations due to the prolonged radiation dominated era, which reduces the fraction of matter that collapses into galaxies, hence, the number of observers. We vary $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ and the positive cosmological constant while fixing the other cosmological parameters. We then show that the probability of finding ourselves in a universe satisfying the current bound is of order a few percents for a flat prior distribution. If $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ is found to be close to the current upper bound or the value suggested by the $H_0$ tension, the anthropic explanation is not very unlikely. On the other hand, if the upper bound on $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ is significantly improved by future observations, such simple anthropic consideration does not explain the small value of $ΔN_{\rm eff}$. We also study simple models where dark radiation consists of relativistic particles produced by heavy scalar decays, and show that the prior probability distribution sensitively depends on the number of the particle species.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Constraints on non-minimal coupling from quantum cosmology

Quantum cosmology is investigated in a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a quantized scalar field non-minimally coupled to curvature. Quantum states of the scalar field must satisfy the regularity condition, which requires that the probability of field fluctuations should not increase with their amplitude. We show that this condition imposes constraints on the allowed values of the curvature coupling parameter $ξ$. This is a surprising result, since the field dynamics depends only on the combination $m^2+ξR$, where $m$ is the field mass and $R = \mathrm{const}$ is the curvature, and does not depend on $ξ$ separately.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

Unification of the Standard Model and Dark Matter Sectors in [SU(5)$\times$U(1)]$^4$

A simple model of dark matter contains a light Dirac field charged under a hidden U(1) gauge symmetry. When a chiral matter content in a strong dynamics satisfies the t'Hooft anomaly matching condition, a massless baryon is a natural candidate of the light Dirac field. One realization is the same matter content as the standard SU(5)$\times$U(1)$_{(B-L)}$ grand unified theory. We propose a chiral [SU(5)$\times$U(1)]$^4$ gauge theory as a unified model of the SM and DM sectors. The low-energy dynamics, which was recently studied, is governed by the hidden U(1)$_4$ gauge interaction and the third-family U(1)$_{(B-L)_3}$ gauge interaction. This model can realize self-interacting dark matter and alleviate the small-scale crisis of collisionless cold dark matter in the cosmological structure formation. The model can also address the semi-leptonic $B$-decay anomaly reported by the LHCb experiment.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Compact objects as the catalysts for vacuum decays

We discuss vacuum decays catalyzed by spherical and horizonless objects and show that an ultra compact object could catalyze a vacuum decay around it within the cosmological time. The catalytic effect of a horizonless compact object could be more efficient than that of a black hole since in this case there is no suppression of the decay rate due to the decrement of its Bekestein entropy. If there exists another minimum with AdS vacuum in the Higgs potential at a high energy scale, the abundance of compact objects such as monopoles, neutron stars, axion stars, oscillons, Q-balls, black hole remnants, gravastars and so on, could be severely constrained. We find that an efficient enhancement of nucleation rate occurs when the size of the compact object is comparable to its Schwarzschild radius and the bubble radius.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

Tunneling wave function of the universe II: the backreaction problem

The tunneling wave function of the universe is calculated exactly for a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a massless conformally coupled scalar field, both by solving the Wheeler-DeWitt equation and by evaluating the Lorentzian path integral. The same wave function is found in both approaches. The back-reaction of quantum field fluctuations on the scale factor amounts to a constant renormalization of the vacuum energy density. This is in contrast to the recent suggestion of Feldbrugge $et$ $al.$ that the back-reaction should diverge when the scale factor gets small, $a \to 0$. Similar results are found for a massive scalar field in the limit of a large mass. We also verified that the tunneling wave function can be expressed as a transition amplitude from a universe of vanishing size with the scalar field in the state of Euclidean vacuum, as it was suggested in our earlier work.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

Self-interacting dark matter with a vector mediator: kinetic mixing with U(1)$_{(B-L)_3}$ gauge boson

A spontaneously broken hidden U(1)$_h$ gauge symmetry can explain both the dark matter stability and the observed relic abundance. In this framework, the light gauge boson can mediate the strong dark matter self-interaction, which addresses astrophysical observations that are hard to explain in collisionless cold dark matter. Motivated by flavoured grand unified theories, we introduce right-handed neutrinos and a flavoured $B - L$ gauge symmetry for the third family U(1)$_{(B-L)_3}$. The unwanted relic of the U(1)$_h$ gauge boson decays into neutrinos via the kinetic mixing with the U(1)$_{(B - L)_3}$ gauge boson. Indirect detection bounds on dark matter are systematically weakened, since dark matter annihilation results in neutrinos. However, the kinetic mixing between U(1)$_{(B - L)_3}$ and U(1)$_Y$ gauge bosons are induced by quantum corrections and leads to an observable signal in direct and indirect detection experiments of dark matter. This model can also explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe via the thermal leptogenesis. In addition, we discuss the possibility of explaining the lepton flavour universality violation in semi-leptonic $B$ meson decays that is recently found in the LHCb experiment.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Isocurvature Perturbations of Dark Energy and Dark Matter from the Swampland Conjecture

We point out that the recently proposed Swampland conjecture on the potential gradient can lead to isocurvature perturbations of dark energy, if the quintessence field acquires large quantum fluctuations during high-scale inflation preferred by the conjecture. Also, if the quintessence field is coupled to a dark sector that contains dark matter, isocurvature perturbation of dark matter is similarly induced. Both isocurvature perturbations can be suppressed if the quintessence potential allows a tracker solution in the early Universe. We find that a vector field of mass $\lesssim {\cal O}(1)$ meV is an excellent dark matter candidate in this context, not only because the right abundance is known to be produced by quantum fluctuations during high-scale inflation without running afoul of isocurvature bounds, but also because its coupling to the quintessence does not spoil the flatness of the potential.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

On Longevity of I-ball/Oscillon

We study I-balls/oscillons, which are long-lived, quasi-periodic, and spatially localized solutions in real scalar field theories. Contrary to the case of Q-balls, there is no evident conserved charge that stabilizes the localized configuration. Nevertheless, in many classical numerical simulations, it has been shown that they are extremely long-lived. In this paper, we clarify the reason for the longevity, and show how the exponential separation of time scales emerges dynamically. Those solutions are time-periodic with a typical frequency of a mass scale of a scalar field. This observation implies that they can be understood by the effective theory after integrating out relativistic modes. We find that the resulting effective theory has an approximate global U(1) symmetry reflecting an approximate number conservation in the non-relativistic regime. As a result, the profile of those solutions is obtained via the bounce method, just like Q-balls, as long as the breaking of the U(1) symmetry is small enough. We then discuss the decay processes of the I-ball/oscillon by the breaking of the U(1) symmetry, namely the production of relativistic modes via number violating processes. We show that the imaginary part is exponentially suppressed, which explains the extraordinary longevity of I-ball/oscillon. In addition, we find that there are some attractor behaviors during the evolution of I-ball/oscillon that further enhance the lifetime. The validity of our effective theory is confirmed by classical numerical simulations. Our formalism may also be useful to study condensates of ultra light bosonic dark matter, such as fuzzy dark matter, and axion stars, for instance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Tunneling wave function of the universe

The tunneling wave function of the universe is investigated in a minisuperspace framework of a de Sitter universe with a quantum scalar field, treated as a perturbation. We consider three different approaches to defining the tunneling wave function: (1) tunneling boundary conditions in superspace, (2) Lorentzian path integral, and (3) quantum tunneling from initial universe of a vanishing size. We show that the superspace approach requires Robin boundary conditions for the scalar field modes, the path integral approach requires adding an appropriate boundary term to the scalar field action, and the initial universe approach requires the initial quantum state of the scalar field to be Euclidean vacuum. We find that all three approaches yield identical wave functions and that scalar field fluctuations are well behaved, contrary to earlier claims in the literature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Inflation in Random Landscapes with two energy scales

We investigate inflation in a multi-dimensional landscape with a hierarchy of energy scales, motivated by the string theory, where the energy scale of Kahler moduli is usually assumed to be much lower than that of complex structure moduli and dilaton field. We argue that in such a landscape, the dynamics of slow-roll inflation is governed by the low-energy potential, while the initial condition for inflation are determined by tunneling through high-energy barriers. We then use the scale factor cutoff measure to calculate the probability distribution for the number of inflationary e-folds and the amplitude of density fluctuations $Q$, assuming that the low-energy landscape is described by a random Gaussian potential with a correlation length much smaller than $M_{\rm pl}$. We find that the distribution for $Q$ has a unique shape and a preferred domain, which depends on the parameters of the low-energy landscape. We discuss some observational implications of this distribution and the constraints it imposes on the landscape parameters.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Classical Nonrelativistic Effective Field Theory and the Role of Gravitational Interactions

Coherent oscillation of axions or axion-like particles may give rise to long-lived clumps, called axion stars, because of the attractive gravitational force or its self-interaction. Such a kind of configuration has been extensively studied in the context of oscillons without the effect of gravity, and its stability can be understood by an approximate conservation of particle number in a non-relativistic effective field theory (EFT). We extend this analysis to the case with gravity to discuss the longevity of axion stars and clarify the EFT expansion scheme in terms of gradient energy and Newton's constant. Our EFT is useful to calculate the axion star configuration and its classical lifetime without any ad hoc assumption. In addition, we derive a simple stability condition against small perturbations. Finally, we discuss the consistency of other non-relativistic effective field theories proposed in the literature.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Unified Origin of Axion and Monopole Dark Matter, and Solution to the Domain-wall Problem

We propose a scenario where the spontaneous breakdown of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry leads to monopole production. Both the axion and the monopole contribute to dark matter, and the Witten effect on the axion mass is a built-in feature. In the KSVZ-type axion model, seemingly different vacua are actually connected by the hidden gauge symmetry, which makes the axionic string unstable and separate into two Alice strings. The Alice string is attached to a single domain wall due to the QCD instanton effect, solving the domain-wall problem. This is in the same spirit of the Lazarides-Shafi mechanism, although the discrete Peccei-Quinn symmetry is not embedded into the center of the original gauge symmetry. In the DFSZ-type axion model, the domain-wall problem is avoided by the Witten effect. If the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is explicitly broken by a small amount, monopoles acquire a tiny electric charge and become mini-charged dark matter. Interestingly, the quality of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is closely tied to darkness of dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

CMB spectral distortions from black holes formed by vacuum bubbles

Vacuum bubbles may nucleate and expand during the cosmic inflation. When inflation ends, the bubbles run into the ambient plasma, producing strong shocks followed by underdensity waves, which propagate outwards. The bubbles themselves eventually form black holes with a wide distribution of masses. It has been recently suggested that such black holes may account for LIGO observations and may provide seeds for supermassive black holes observed at galactic centers. They may also provide a significant part or even the whole of the dark matter. We estimate the spectral $μ$-distortion of the CMB induced by expanding shocks and underdensities. The predicted distortions averaged over the sky are well below the current bounds, but localized peaks due to the largest black holes impose constraints on the model parameters.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Inflation in multi-field random Gaussian landscapes

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a multi-field random Gaussian landscape. The landscape is assumed to be small-field, with a correlation length much smaller than the Planck scale. Inflation then typically occurs in small patches of the landscape, localized near inflection or saddle points. We find that the inflationary track is typically close to a straight line in the field space, and the statistical properties of inflation are similar to those in a one-dimensional landscape. This picture of multi-field inflation is rather different from that suggested by the Dyson Brownian motion model; we discuss the reasons for this difference. We also discuss tunneling from inflating false vacua to the neighborhood of inflection and saddle points and show that the tunneling endpoints tend to concentrate along the flat direction in the landscape.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Primordial Black Holes from Polynomial Potentials in Single Field Inflation

Within canonical single field inflation models, we provide a method to reverse engineer and reconstruct the inflaton potential from a given power spectrum. This is not only a useful tool to find a potential from observational constraints, but also gives insight into how to generate a large amplitude spike in density perturbations, especially those that may lead to primordial black holes (PBHs). In accord with other works, we find that the usual slow-roll conditions need to be violated in order to generate a significant spike in the spectrum. We find that a way to achieve a very large amplitude spike in single field models is for the classical roll of the inflaton to over-shoot a local minimum during inflation. We provide an example of a quintic polynomial potential that implements this idea and leads to the observed spectral index, observed amplitude of fluctuations on large scales, significant PBH formation on small scales, and is compatible with other observational constraints. We quantify how much fine-tuning is required to achieve this in a family of random polynomial potentials, which may be useful to estimate the probability of PBH formation in the string landscape.

astro-ph.CO↗