arXiv subjects

Qing-Guo Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Qing-Guo Huang.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Scalaron from $R^2$-gravity as a Heavy Field

We study a model of inflation in which a scalar field $χ$ is non-minimally coupled to Starobinsky's $R^2$ gravity. After transforming it to the Einstein frame, a new scalar field, the scalaron $ϕ$, will appear and couple to $χ$ with a nontrivial field metric, while $χ$ acquires a positive mass via the non-minimal coupling. Initially inflation occurs along the $ϕ$ direction with $χ$ trapped near its origin by this induced mass. After $ϕ$ crosses a critical value, it starts rolling down rapidly and proceeds todamped oscillations around an effective local minimum determined by the value of $χ$, while inflation still continues, driven by the $χ$ field at this second stage where the effect of the non-minimal coupling becomes negligible. The presence of the damped oscillations during the transition from the first to second stage of inflation causes enhancement and oscillation features in the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation. Assuming that the oscillations may be treated perturbatively, we calculate these features by using the $δN$ formalism, and discuss its observational implications to large scale CMB anomalies or primordial black hole formation, depending on the scale of the features.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Constraints on the Primordial Black Hole Abundance from the First Advanced LIGO Observation Run Using the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

Advanced LIGO's discovery of gravitational-wave events is stimulating extensive studies on the origin of binary black holes. Assuming that the gravitational-wave events can be explained by binary primordial black hole mergers, we utilize the upper limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background given by Advanced LIGO as a new observational window to independently constrain the abundance of primordial black holes in dark matter. We show that Advanced LIGO's first observation run gives the best constraint on the primordial black hole abundance in the mass range $1 M_\odot \lesssim M_\text{PBH}\lesssim 100 M_\odot$, pushing the previous microlensing and dwarf galaxy dynamics constraints tighter by 1 order of magnitude. Moreover, we discuss the possibility to detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from primordial black holes, in particular from subsolar mass primordial black holes, by Advanced LIGO in the near future.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Tight $H_0$ constraint from galaxy redshfit surveys: combining baryon acoustic osillation measurements and Alcock-Paczynski test

We report a tight Hubble constant constraint $67.78^{+1.21}_{-1.86}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (2.26\% precision) derived from galaxy redshift surveys. We combine the BAO measurements from 6dFGS, the SDSS DR7 main galaxies, the BOSS DR12 galaxies, and eBOSS DR14 quasars, and also apply the tomographic Alcock-Paczynski (AP) method to the BOSS DR12 galaxies, to place constraints on $H_0$ in the spatially flat $Λ$CDM framework. Our result is fully consistent with the CMB constraints from Planck, but in $2.58σ$ tension with local measurements of Riess et al. 2016. Compared with the BAO alone constraint, the BAO+AP combined result reduces the error bar by 32%. This shows the strong power of the tomographic AP method in extracting cosmological information from galaxy redshift surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Signatures of Modified Dispersion Relation of Graviton in the Cosmic Microwave Background

The dispersion relation of graviton is a fundamental issue for fundamental physics about gravity. In this paper we investigate how the modified dispersion relation of graviton affects the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra, in particular the B-mode polarization. Our results will be useful to test the dispersion relation of graviton at the energy scale around $10^{-29}$ eV.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

New cosmological constraints with extended-Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR14 quasar sample

We update the constraints on the cosmological parameters by adopting the Planck data released in 2015 and Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) measurements including the new DR14 quasar sample measurement at redshift $z=1.52$, and we conclude that the based six-parameter $Λ$CDM model is preferred. Exploring some extensions to the $Λ$CDM models, we find that the equation of state of dark energy reads $w=-1.036\pm 0.056$ in the $w$CDM model, the effective relativistic degrees of freedom in the Universe is $N_\text{eff}=3.09_{-0.20}^{+0.18}$ in the $N_\text{eff}+Λ$CDM model and the spatial curvature parameter is $Ω_k=(1.8\pm1.9)\times 10^{-3}$ in the $Ω_k+Λ$CDM model at $68\%$ confidence level (C.L.), and the $95\%$ C.L. upper bounds on the sum of three active neutrinos masses are $\sum m_ν<0.16$ eV for the normal hierarchy (NH) and $\sum m_ν<0.19$ eV for the inverted hierarchy (IH) with $Δχ^2\equiv χ^2_\text{NH}-χ^2_\text{IH}=-1.25$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Effect of the Early Reionization on the Cosmic Microwave Background and Cosmological Parameter Estimates

The early reionization (ERE) is supposed to be a physical process which happens after recombination, but before the instantaneous reionization caused by the first generation of stars. We investigate the effect of the ERE on the temperature and polarization power spectra of cosmic microwave background (CMB), and adopt principal components analysis (PCA) to model-independently reconstruct the ionization history during the ERE. In addition, we also discuss how the ERE affects the cosmological parameter estimates, and find that the ERE does not impose any significant influences on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the neutrino mass at the sensitivities of current experiments. The better CMB polarization data can be used to give a tighter constraint on the ERE and might be important for more precisely constraining cosmological parameters in the future.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Constraint on the abundance of primordial black holes in dark matter from Planck data

We use Planck data released in 2015 to constrain the abundance of primordial black holes (PBHs) in dark matter in two different reionization models (one is the instantaneous reionization and the other is the asymmetric reionization), and significantly improve the upper limits on the abundance of PBHs from WMAP 3-year data by around two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, these new limits imply that the event rates of mergers of PBH binaries (Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$) are less than $0.002$ for $M_\text{pbh}=30M_\odot$, $5$ for $M_\text{pbh}=10M_\odot$ and $2000$ for $M_\text{pbh}=2M_\odot$ at $95\%$ confidence level (C.L.), and thus GW150914 seems very unlikely produced by the merger of a PBH binary.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Detecting the Neutrinos Mass Hierarchy from Cosmological Data

We propose a new parameterization to measure the neutrino mass hierarchy, namely $Δ=(m_3-m_1)/(m_1+m_3)$ which is dimensionless and varies in the range $[-1,1]$. Taking into account the results of neutrino oscillation experiments, $Δ$ is the unique parameter for determining all the masses of neutrinos, and a positive (negative) sign of $Δ$ denotes the normal (inverted) mass hierarchy. Adopting the currently available cosmic observations, we find that the normal mass hierarchy is slightly favored, and the mass of lightest neutrino is less than $0.030$ eV for the normal mass hierarchy and $0.024$ eV for the inverted mass hierarchy at $95\%$ confidence level.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Power-law modulation of the scalar power spectrum from a heavy field with a monomial potential

The effects of heavy fields modulate the scalar power spectrum during inflation. We analytically calculate the modulations of the scalar power spectrum from a heavy field with a separable monomial potential, i.e. V(ϕ)~ϕ^n. In general the modulation is characterized by a power-law oscillation which is reduced to the logarithmic oscillation in the case of n=2.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

How the Dark Energy Can Reconcile \textit{Planck} with Local Determination of the Hubble Constant

We try to reconcile the tension between the local 2.4\% determination of Hubble constant and its global determination by $\textit{Planck}$ CMB data and BAO data through modeling the dark energy variously. We find that the chi-square is significantly reduced by $Δχ^2_\text{all}=-6.76$ in the redshift-binned dark energy model where the $68\%$ limits of the equation of state of dark energy read $w(0\leq z\leq 0.1)=-1.958_{-0.508}^{+0.509}$, $w(0.1< z\leq 1.5)=-1.006_{-0.082}^{+0.092}$, and here $w(z>1.5)$ is fixed to $-1$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Inflation model constraints from data released in 2015

We provide the latest constraints on the power spectra of both scalar and tensor perturbations from the CMB data (including \textit{Planck}~2015, BICEP2 \& \textit{Keck Array} experiments) and the new BAO scales from SDSS-III BOSS observation. We find that the inflation model with a convex potential is not favored and both the inflation model with a monomial potential and the natural inflation model are marginally disfavored at around $95\%$ confidence level. But both the Brane inflation model and the Starobinsky inflation model fit the data quite well.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Preferred axis of CMB parity asymmetry in the masked maps

Both WMAP and Planck data show a significant odd-multipole preference in the large scales of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. If this pattern originates from cosmological effects, then it can be considered a crucial clue for a violation in the cosmological principle. By defining various direction dependent statistics in the full-sky Planck 2015 maps (see, for instance, Naselsky et al. (2012); W. Zhao (2014)), we found that the CMB parity asymmetry has a preferred direction, which is independent of the choices of the statistics. In particular, this preferred axis is strongly aligned with those in the CMB quadrupole and octopole, as well as that in the CMB kinematic dipole, which hints to their non-cosmological origin. In realistic observations, the foreground residuals are inevitable, and should be properly masked out in order to avoid possible misinterpretation of the results. In this paper, we extend our previous analyses to the masked Planck 2015 data. By defining a similar direction dependent statistic in the masked map, we find a preferred direction of the CMB parity asymmetry, in which the axis also coincides with that found in the full-sky analysis. Therefore, our conclusions on the CMB parity violation and its directional properties are confirmed.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Constraints on the neutrino mass and mass hierarchy from cosmological observations

Considering the mass splitting between three active neutrinos, we represent the new constraints on the sum of neutrino mass $\sum m_ν$ by updating the anisotropic analysis of Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale in the CMASS and LOWZ galaxy samples from Data Release 12 of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS DR12). Combining the BAO data of 6dFGS, MGS, LOWZ and CMASS with $\textit{Planck}$~2015 data of temperature anisotropy and polarizations of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), we find that the $95\%$ C.L. upper bounds on $\sum m_ν$ refer to $\sum m_{ν,\rm NH}<0.18$ eV for normal hierarchy (NH), $\sum m_{ν,\rm IH}<0.20$ eV for inverted hierarchy (IH) and $\sum m_{ν,\rm DH}<0.15$ eV for degenerate hierarchy (DH) respectively, and the normal hierarchy is slightly preferred than the inverted one ($Δχ^2\equiv χ^2_{\rm NH}-χ^2_{\rm IH} \simeq -3.4$). In addition, the additional relativistic degrees of freedom and massive sterile neutrinos are neither favored at present.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Distance Priors from \emph{Planck} 2015 data

We update the distance priors by adopting $Planck~ \textrm{TT,TE,EE}+\textrm{lowP}$ data released in 2015, and our results impose at least $30\%$ tighter constraints than those from $Planck~ \textrm{TT}+\textrm{lowP}$. Combining the distance priors with the combination of supernova Union~2.1 compilation of 580 SNe (Union~2.1) and low redshift Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) data, we constrain the cosmological parameters in the freely binned dark energy (FBDE) and FBDE$+Ω_k$ models respectively, and find that the equations of state of dark energy in both models are consistent with $w=-1$. Furthermore, we show that the tension with the BAO data at $z=2.34$ from Ly$α$ forest (Ly$α$F) auto-correlation and Combined Ly$α$F cannot be relaxed in the FBDE and FBDE$+Ω_k$ models.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Forecasting sensitivity on tilt of power spectrum of primordial gravitational waves after Planck satellite

By taking into account the contamination of foreground radiations, we employ the Fisher matrix to forecast the future sensitivity on the tilt of power spectrum of primordial tensor perturbations for several ground-based (AdvACT, CLASS, Keck/BICEP3, Simons Array, SPT-3G), balloon-borne (EBEX, Spider) and satellite (CMBPol, COrE, LiteBIRD) experiments of B-mode polarizations. For the fiducial model $n_t=0$, our results show that the satellite experiments give good sensitivity on the tensor tilt $n_t$ to the level $σ_{n_t}\lesssim0.1$ for $r\gtrsim2\times10^{-3}$, while the ground-based and balloon-borne experiments give worse sensitivity. By considering the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck (BKP) constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, we see that it is impossible for these experiments to test the consistency relation $n_t=-r/8$ in the canonical single-field slow-roll inflation models.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

The four-point correlation function of graviton during inflation

We expand the Einstein-Hilbert action with a positive cosmological constant up to the fourth order in terms of gravity fluctuations, and then use the in-in formalism to calculate the four-point correlation function for gravitational waves, including both contact and exchange diagrams, generated during a period of exactly de Sitter expansion. In addition, we also present the general properties of the $n$-point function of graviton in terms of both circularly and linearly polarized states.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

On the uniqueness of the non-minimal matter coupling in massive gravity and bigravity

In de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley (dRGT) massive gravity and bigravity, a non-minimal matter coupling involving both metrics generically re-introduces the Boulware--Deser (BD) ghost. A non-minimal matter coupling via a simple, yet specific composite metric has been proposed, which eliminates the BD ghost below the strong coupling scale. Working explicitly in the metric formulation and for arbitrary spacetime dimensions, we show that this composite metric is the unique consistent non-minimal matter coupling below the strong coupling scale, which emerges out of two diagnostics, namely, absence of Ostrogradski ghosts in the decoupling limit and absence of the BD ghost from matter quantum loop corrections.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Lyth bound revisited

Imposing that the excursion distance of inflaton in field space during inflation be less than the Planck scale, we derive an upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio at the CMB scales, i.e. $r_{*,max}$, in the general canonical single-field slow-roll inflation model, in particular the model with non-negligible running of the spectral index $α_s$ and/or the running of running $β_s$. We find that $r_{*,max}\simeq 7\times 10^{-4}$ for $n_s=0.9645$ without running and running of running, and $r_{*,max}$ is significantly relaxed to the order of ${\cal O}(10^{-2}\sim 10^{-1})$ in the inflation model with $α_s$ and/or $β_s\sim +{\cal O}(10^{-2})$ which are marginally preferred by the Planck 2015 data.

astro-ph.CO↗