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P. Binétruy

Publications and source records attributed to P. Binétruy.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Cosmology and Gravitation: the grand scheme for High-Energy Physics

These lectures describe how the Standard Model of cosmology ($Λ$CDM) has developped, based on observational facts but also on ideas formed in the context of the theory of fundamental interactions, both gravitational and nongravitational, the latter being described by the Standard Model of high energy physics. It focuses on the latest developments, in particular the precise knowledge of the early Universe provided by the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the discovery of the present acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. While insisting on the successes of the Standard Model of cosmology, we will stress that it rests on three pillars which involve many open questions: the theory of inflation, the nature of dark matter and of dark energy. We will devote one chapter to each of these issues, describing in particular how this impacts our views on the theory of fundamental interactions. More technical parts are given in italics. They may be skipped altogether.

gr-qc↗

The Gravitational Universe

The last century has seen enormous progress in our understanding of the Universe. We know the life cycles of stars, the structure of galaxies, the remnants of the big bang, and have a general understanding of how the Universe evolved. We have come remarkably far using electromagnetic radiation as our tool for observing the Universe. However, gravity is the engine behind many of the processes in the Universe, and much of its action is dark. Opening a gravitational window on the Universe will let us go further than any alternative. Gravity has its own messenger: Gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime. They travel essentially undisturbed and let us peer deep into the formation of the first seed black holes, exploring redshifts as large as z ~ 20, prior to the epoch of cosmic re-ionisation. Exquisite and unprecedented measurements of black hole masses and spins will make it possible to trace the history of black holes across all stages of galaxy evolution, and at the same time constrain any deviation from the Kerr metric of General Relativity. eLISA will be the first ever mission to study the entire Universe with gravitational waves. eLISA is an all-sky monitor and will offer a wide view of a dynamic cosmos using gravitational waves as new and unique messengers to unveil The Gravitational Universe. It provides the closest ever view of the early processes at TeV energies, has guaranteed sources in the form of verification binaries in the Milky Way, and can probe the entire Universe, from its smallest scales around singularities and black holes, all the way to cosmological dimensions.

astro-ph.CO↗

The 3-Form Multiplet in Supergravity

We derive the couplings of the 3-form supermultiplet to the general supergravity-matter-Yang-Mills system. Based on the methods of superspace geometry, we identify component fields, establish their supergravity transformations and construct invariant component field actions. Two specific applications are adressed: the appearance of fundamental 3-forms in the context of strong-weak duality and the use of the 3-form supermultiplets to describe effective degrees of freedom relevant to the mechanism of gaugino condensation.

hep-th↗

Yukawa textures with an anomalous horizontal abelian symmetry

The observed hierarchy of quark and lepton masses and mixings may be obtained by adding an abelian family symmetry to the Minimal Supersymmetric Model and coupling quarks and leptons to an electroweak singlet scalar field. In a large class of such models, this symmetry suffers from anomalies which must be compensated by the Green-Schwarz mechanism; this in turn fixes the electroweak mixing angle to be $\sin^2 θ_W = 3/8$ at the string scale, without any assumed GUT structure. The analysis is extended to two distinct generalisations of the Standard Model: neutrino masses and mixings and R-parity violating interactions.

hep-ph↗