arXiv subjects

Peter Adshead

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Adshead.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Primordial Black Holes from Kinetic Preheating

We demonstrate that violent kinetic preheating following inflation can lead to the formation of black holes in the early Universe. In $\alpha$-attractor models with derivative inflaton couplings, nonlinear amplification of field fluctuations drives large spacetime curvature and gravitational collapse shortly after inflation ends. Using fully general-relativistic lattice simulations, we find that these dynamics produce black holes with masses of order tens of grams at sub-horizon scales, without requiring large primordial curvature perturbations. Although such micro-black holes evaporate rapidly via Hawking radiation, their formation modifies the post-inflationary equation of state and their evaporation can successfully reheat the Universe before Big Bang nucleosynthesis. These results identify kinetic preheating as a new, efficient channel for black-hole production and establish a direct connection between inflationary symmetries and strong-gravity phenomena at reheating.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Twisting inflation to sub-Planckian axion decay constants

We study pseudoscalar inflation in the Einstein-Cartan-Palatini (first-order) formulation of gravity while allowing for torsion. We introduce two non-minimal interactions in the gravitational sector: pseudoscalar couplings to the Pontryagin density (Chern-Simons term) and the Nieh-Yan topological invariant. In the presence of these terms, the rolling pseudoscalar sources non-trivial torsional fields during inflation. We show that pathological gradient and ghost instabilities limit the strength of the coupling to the Pontryagin density during inflation. Furthermore, we show that the interaction with the Nieh-Yan term induces a new contribution to the pseudoscalar kinetic term, which parametrically increases its decay constant and allows for inflation on steep potentials. The torsion field generated by the background is parity violating, which is manifest in the resulting chiral gravitational wave spectrum. We find that the scalar sector is largely unaffected beyond the remapping of the axion decay constant to a larger value. Consequently, we show that while natural inflation with a cosine potential remains inconsistent with observations, the squared quartic hilltop potential can be made consistent with Planck 2018 data even for sub-Planckian decay constants by coupling to the Nieh-Yan term.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Neutrino Mass Constraints from kSZ Tomography

We forecast neutrino mass constraints using Stage IV CMB and large-scale structure surveys, focusing on kSZ tomography as an independent probe of the growth of cosmic structure. We take into account several realistic factors, including the kSZ optical depth degeneracy. Our baseline setup consists of CMB S4 temperature and polarization (but not lensing) information, DESI BAO, the LSST galaxy power spectrum, and a Planck like $\tau$ prior, yielding $\sigma(\sum m_\nu) = 32\, \rm{meV}$. Adding kSZ tomography improves this by a few percent, while a kSZ optical depth prior can push this improvement to over $15\%$, giving $\sigma(\sum m_\nu) = 27\, \rm{meV}$. When CMB lensing is included in the baseline setup, kSZ does not further improve neutrino mass constraints. We find promising prospects for a scenario combining futuristic CMB and galaxy surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Probing beyond local-type non-Gaussianity with kSZ tomography

Non-Gaussianity of the primordial curvature perturbations may arise from a variety of well motivated early Universe scenarios. In particular, inflationary theories with additional light degrees of freedom can generate a bispectrum that is peaked in the squeezed limit. While the presence of an additional massless scalar can produce local-type primordial non-Gaussianity, in general the squeezed limit of the bispectrum depends on the mass of the new degree of freedom, and can deviate from the local shape. The resulting bispectrum leaves a distinct imprint on the amplitude and scale-dependence of the galaxy bias, which for massive fields can differ from the $k^{-2}$ scaling from local type non-Gaussianity, providing an observational window into the physics of the early Universe. In this work we demonstrate that kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich tomography with next generation cosmological surveys will offer significant additional constraining power for both the shape and amplitude of scale-dependent bias arising from primordial non-Gaussianity beyond the local type. We show that this improved constraining power is robust to various obstacles such as the optical depth degeneracy, photometric redshift errors, and uncertainty in the galaxy bias model. With CMB S4 and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, we forecast that compared to the galaxy survey alone the addition of kSZ tomography will offer a roughly factor of two reduction in the measurement uncertainty of the amplitude $f_{NL}$ of primordial non-Gaussianity well beyond the local (massless) limit. We find that kSZ tomography extends the range of masses for which order unity constraints on $f_{NL}$ are achievable, as well as extending the range of masses for which the late time probes of the matter power spectrum outperform the sensitivity of the CMB itself.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Gravitational Waves from Kinetic Preheating

We study gravitational wave production during kinetic preheating after inflation with a focus on scenarios that arise in $\alpha$-attractor models where a scalar dilaton-like inflaton is kinetically coupled to a second scalar field. We present high-resolution lattice simulations of three $\alpha$-attractor models for a range of parameters to probe regions where preheating is efficient. We find that preheating in these models can be extremely violent, resulting in gravitational wave energy densities that can be constrained by cosmic microwave background measurements of the effective number of relativistic species, $N_{\rm eff}$

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Mechanical cosmology: simulating scalar fluctuations in expanding Universes using synthetic mechanical lattices

Inspired by recent advances in observational astrophysics and continued explorations in the field of analog gravity, we discuss the prospect of simulating models of cosmology within the context of synthetic mechanical lattice experiments. We focus on the physics of expanding Universe scenarios described by the Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric. Specifically, quantizing scalar fluctuations in a background FLRW spacetime leads to a quadratic bosonic Hamiltonian with temporally varying pair production terms. Here we present a mapping that provides a one-to-one correspondence between these classes of cosmology models and feedback-coupled mechanical oscillators. As proof-of-principle, we then perform experiments on a synthetic mechanical lattice composed of such oscillators. We simulate two different FLRW expansion scenarios with Universes dominated by vacuum energy and matter and discuss our experimental results.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Kinetic Preheating after $\alpha$-attractor Inflation

We study preheating via kinetic couplings after dilaton-axion $\alpha$-attractor inflation. We focus on E-model $\alpha$-attractor driven inflation where the inflaton is kinetically coupled to an ultralight axion. In this class of models, the kinetic coupling is related to the form of the potential, and once the amplitude of the scalar curvature spectrum as well as the tensor-to-scalar ratio are specified, the model has no free parameters. We find that kinetic preheating can be extremely efficient, with stronger preheating occurring at parameter values corresponding to smaller values of the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Preheating becomes extremely efficient below $r \lesssim 1.6\times 10^{-5}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Gauge preheating with full general relativity

We study gauge preheating following pseudoscalar-driven inflation in full general relativity. We implement the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura (BSSN) scheme to solve the full nonlinear evolution of the metric alongside the dynamics of the pseudoscalar and gauge fields. The dynamics of the background and emission of gravitational waves are broadly consistent with simulations in a Friedmann-Lema\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime. We find large, localized overdensities in the BSSN simulations of order $\delta = \delta\rho/\rho \sim 30$, and the dimensionless power spectrum of $\delta$ peaks above unity. These overdense regions are seeded on length scales only slightly smaller than the horizon, and have a compactness $C \sim 0.1$. The scale of peak compactness is shorter than the Jeans length, which implies that pressure of the matter fields plays an important role in the evolution of these objects.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Dark photon dark matter from an oscillating dilaton

We present a mechanism for generating ultralight dark photon dark matter in the early Universe via a dilatonlike scalar field coupled to the dark photon's kinetic term. Energy is initially stored in the condensate of the dilaton, which resonantly produces dark photons when it begins oscillating in the early Universe. While similar scenarios with axion--dark-photon couplings require large coupling coefficients to fully populate the dark photon, the dilatonic coupling features a unique regime: When the dark photon's mass is half that of the dilaton, dark photons are copiously produced even when the dilaton undergoes small-amplitude oscillations. Scenarios consistent with the cosmic microwave background allow for ultralight vector dark matter with mass as light as $10^{-20}$ eV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass Theory Frontier: Astrophysics and Cosmology

We summarize progress made in theoretical astrophysics and cosmology over the past decade and areas of interest for the coming decade. This Report is prepared as the TF09 "Astrophysics and Cosmology" topical group summary for the Theory Frontier as part of the Snowmass 2021 process.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Dark radiation constraints on portal interactions with hidden sectors

We update dark radiation constraints on millicharged particle (MCP) and gauged baryon-number-minus-lepton-number ($B-L$) extensions of the Standard Model (SM). In these models, a massive SM gauge singlet mediator couples the SM plasma to additional SM-singlet light degrees of freedom. In the early Universe, these new light particles are populated via the interaction of the SM with the MCP, or the new $B-L$ gauge boson, and act as dark radiation. The presence of dark radiation in the early Universe is tightly constrained by current and upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements. We update bounds on MCPs from current measurements of $N_{\rm eff}$ and show that future CMB experiments will be able to rule out or discover the extended MCP model invoked to explain the EDGES anomaly. Our analysis of the gauged $B-L$ model goes beyond previous studies by including quantum-statistical and out-of-equilibrium effects. Further, we account for the finite lifetime of the $B-L$ gauge boson, which boosts the subsequent right-handed neutrino energy density. We also develop a number of approximations and techniques for simplifying and solving the relevant Boltzmann equations. We use our approximations to develop a lower bound on the radiation density in a generic hidden sector with a light relic that is insensitive to the details of the hidden sector, provided the mediator interacts more strongly with the hidden sector than with the SM.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Production and backreaction of massive fermions during axion inflation with non-Abelian gauge fields

We study the production and backreaction of massive vector-like fermions in the background of a classical SU(2) gauge field during axion-driven inflation. We demonstrate all ultraviolet divergences due to the interactions with the fermions can be absorbed by renormalization of the axion wavefunction and the gauge coupling. The effects of the fermion-axion interaction vanish in the massless limit as required by symmetry. For very massive fermions, contact interactions are induced between the axion, the gauge field and the gravitational field. In this massive limit, we find the usual axion-gauge field interactions are induced, however, in addition we observe the appearance of axion self-interactions, as well as kinetic braiding of the axion with the Einstein tensor. These new axion derivative interactions present intriguing opportunities for model building and phenomenology.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The Physics of Light Relics

Many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of new light species that may have been produced in the early universe. Prominent examples include axions, sterile neutrinos, gravitinos, dark photons, and more. The gravitational influence of light relics leaves imprints in the cosmic microwave background fluctuations, the large-scale structure of the universe and the primordial element abundances. In this paper, we detail the physics of cosmological light relics, and describe how measurements of their relic density and mass serve as probes of physics beyond the Standard Model. A measurement of the light relic density at the precision of upcoming cosmological surveys will point the way toward new physics or severely constrain the range of viable extensions to the Standard Model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass 2021 CMB-S4 White Paper

This Snowmass 2021 White Paper describes the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4 project CMB-S4, which is designed to cross critical thresholds in our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe, from the highest energies at the dawn of time through the growth of structure to the present day. We provide an overview of the science case, the technical design, and project plan.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Axion anomalies

We study fermions derivatively coupled to axion-like or pseudoscalar fields, and show that the axial vector current of the fermions is not conserved in the limit where the fermion is massless. This apparent violation of the classical chiral symmetry is due to the background axion field. We compute the contributions to this anomalous Ward identity due to the pseudoscalar field alone, which arise in Minkowski space, as well as the effects due to an interaction with an external gravitational field. For the case of massless fermions, these interactions induce terms in the axion effective action that can be removed by the addition of local counterterms. We demonstrate that these counterterms are generated by the transformation of the path integral measure when transforming the theory from a form where the chiral symmetry is manifest to one where the symmetry is only apparent after using the classical equations of motion. We work perturbatively in Minkowski space and include the effects of interactions with a linearized gravitational field. Using the heat kernel method, we study the transformation properties of the path integral measure, and include the effects of non-linear gravity as well as interactions with gauge fields. Finally, we verify our relation by considering derivatively coupled fermions during pseudoscalar-driven inflation and computing the divergence of the axial current in de Sitter spacetime.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Unraveling the Dirac Neutrino with Cosmological and Terrestrial Detectors

We point out a correlation between the effective number of relativistic degrees of species $ΔN_\text{eff}$, the cosmologically measured $m_{ν,\text{sterile}}^{\text{eff}}$, and the terrestrially measured neutrino mass sum and effective electron neutrino mass, $Σm_ν$ and $m_{ν_e}$, which arises in the Dirac neutrino hypothesis. If the neutrinos are Dirac particles, and if the active neutrinos' sterile partners were once thermalized in the early universe, then this new cosmological relic would simultaneously contribute to the effective number of relativistic species, $ΔN_\text{eff}$, and also lead to a correlation between the cosmologically-measured effective sterile neutrino mass $m_{ν,\text{sterile}}^\text{eff}$ and the terrestrially-measured active neutrino mass sum $Σm_ν$. We emphasize that specifically correlated deviations in $ΔN_\text{eff}\gtrsim 3$, $m_{ν,\text{sterile}}^\text{eff}$ and $Σm_ν$ above their standard predictions could be the harbinger revealing the Dirac nature of neutrinos. We provide several benchmark examples, including Dirac leptogenesis, that predict a thermal relic population of the sterile partners, and we discuss the relevant observational prospects with current and near-future experiments. If the correlation highlighted in this work is observed in future surveys, it could be interpreted as supporting evidence of Dirac neutrino masses.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Multimessenger Cosmology: correlating CMB and SGWB measurements

Characterizing the physical properties of the stochastic gravitational waves background (SGWB) is a key step towards identifying the nature of its possible origin. We focus our analysis on SGWB anisotropies. The existence of a non-trivial primordial scalar-tensor-tensor (STT) correlation in the squeezed configuration may be inferred from the effect that a long wavelength scalar mode has on the gravitational wave power spectrum: an anisotropic contribution. Crucially, such contribution is correlated with temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We show that, for inflationary models that generate suitably large STT non-Gaussianities, cross-correlating the CMB with the stochastic background of gravitational waves is a very effective probe of early universe physics. The resulting signal can be a smoking-gun for primordial SGWB anisotropies.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Self-gravitating Vector Dark Matter

We derive the non-relativistic limit of a massive vector field. We show that the Cartesian spatial components of the vector behave as three identical, non-interacting scalar fields. We find classes of spherical, cylindrical, and planar self-gravitating vector solitons in the Newtonian limit. The gravitational properties of the lowest-energy vector solitons$\mathrm{-}$the gravitational potential and density field$\mathrm{-}$depend only on the net mass of the soliton and the vector particle mass. In particular, these self-gravitating, ground-state vector solitons are independent of the distribution of energy across the vector field components, and are indistinguishable from their scalar-field counterparts. Fuzzy Vector Dark Matter models can therefore give rise to halo cores with identical observational properties to the ones in scalar Fuzzy Dark Matter models. We also provide novel hedgehog vector soliton solutions, which cannot be observed in scalar-field theories. The gravitational binding of the lowest-energy hedgehog halo is about three times weaker than the ground-state vector soliton. Finally, we show that no spherically symmetric solitons exist with a divergence-free vector field.

gr-qc↗