arXiv subjects

R. Horvat

Publications and source records attributed to R. Horvat.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

The first observed stellar occultations by the irregular satellite (Saturn IX) Phoebe and improved rotational period

We report six stellar occultations by (Saturn IX) Phoebe, an irregular satellite of Saturn, obtained between mid-2017 and mid-2019. The 2017 July 06 event is the first stellar occultation by an irregular satellite ever observed. The occultation chords were compared to a 3D shape model of the satellite obtained from Cassini observations. The rotation period available in the literature led to a sub-observer point at the moment of the observed occultations where the chords could not fit the 3D model. A procedure was developed to identify the correct sub-observer longitude. It allowed us to obtain the rotation period with improved precision over currently known value from literature. We show that the difference between the observed and the predicted sub-observer longitude suggests two possible solutions for the rotation period. By comparing these values with recently observed rotational light curves and single-chord stellar occultations, we can identify the best solution for Phoebe's rotational period as $9.27365 \pm 0.00002$ h. From the stellar occultations, we also obtained 6 geocentric astrometric positions in the ICRS as realised by the Gaia-DR2 with uncertainties at the 1-mas level.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2016

Pluto's atmosphere from the 29 June 2015 ground-based stellar occultation at the time of the New Horizons flyby

We present results from a multi-chord Pluto stellar occultation observed on 29 June 2015 from New Zealand and Australia. This occurred only two weeks before the NASA New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system and serves as a useful comparison between ground-based and space results. We find that Pluto's atmosphere is still expanding, with a significant pressure increase of 5$\pm$2\% since 2013 and a factor of almost three since 1988. This trend rules out, as of today, an atmospheric collapse associated with Pluto's recession from the Sun. A central flash, a rare occurrence, was observed from several sites in New Zealand. The flash shape and amplitude are compatible with a spherical and transparent atmospheric layer of roughly 3~km in thickness whose base lies at about 4~km above Pluto's surface, and where an average thermal gradient of about 5 K~km$^{-1}$ prevails. We discuss the possibility that small departures between the observed and modeled flash are caused by local topographic features (mountains) along Pluto's limb that block the stellar light. Finally, using two possible temperature profiles, and extrapolating our pressure profile from our deepest accessible level down to the surface, we obtain a possible range of 11.9-13.7~$μ$bar for the surface pressure.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

Avoiding Boltzmann Brain domination in holographic dark energy models

In a spatially infinite and eternal universe approaching ultimately a de Sitter (or quasi-de Sitter) regime, structure can form by thermal fluctuations as such a space is thermal. The models of Dark Energy invoking holographic principle fit naturally into such a category, and spontaneous formation of isolated brains in otherwise empty space seems the most perplexing, creating the paradox of Boltzmann Brains (BB). It is thus appropriate to ask if such models can be made free from domination by Boltzmann Brains. Here we consider only the simplest model, but adopt both the local and the global viewpoint in the description of the Universe. In the former case, we find that if a parameter $c$, which modulates the Dark Energy density, lies outside the exponentially narrow strip around the most natural $c = 1$ line, the theory is rendered BB-safe. In the later case, the bound on $c$ is exponentially stronger, and seemingly at odds with those bounds on $c$ obtained from various observational tests.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Self-energies on deformed spacetimes

We study one-loop photon (Pi) and neutrino (Sigma) self-energies in a U(1) covariant gauge-theory on d-dimensional noncommutative spaces determined by a antisymmetric-constant tensor theta^{mu nu}. For the general fermion-photon (S_f) and photon self-interaction (S_g) the closed form results reveal self-energies besetting with all kind of pathological terms: the UV divergence, the quadratic UV/IR mixing terms as well as a logarithmic IR divergent term of the type ln(mu^2(theta p)^2). In addition, the photon-loop produces new tensor structures satisfying transversality condition by themselves. We show that the photon self-energy in four-dimensional Euclidean spacetime can be reduced to two finite terms by imposing a specific full rank of theta^{mu nu} and setting deformation parameters (kappa_f,kappa_g)=(0,3). In this case the neutrino two-point function vanishes. Thus for a specific point (0,3) in the parameter-space (kappa_f,kappa_g), a covariant theta-exact approach is able to produce a divergence-free result for one-loop quantum corrections, having also well-defined both the commutative limit as well as the pointlike limit of an extended object. While in two-dimensional space the photon self-energy is finite for arbitrary (kappa_f,kappa_g) combinations, the neutrino self-energy still contains an superficial IR divergence.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Constraining solar hidden photons using HPGe detector

In this Letter we report on the results of our search for photons from a U(1) gauge factor in the hidden sector of the full theory. With our experimental setup we observe the single spectrum in a HPGe detector arising as a result of the photoelectric-like absorption of hidden photons emitted from the Sun on germanium atoms inside the detector. The main ingredient of the theory used in our analysis, a severely constrained kinetic mixing from the two U(1) gauge factors and massive hidden photons, entails both photon into hidden state oscillations and a minuscule coupling of hidden photons to visible matter, of which the latter our experimental setup has been designed to observe. On a theoretical side, full account was taken of the effects of refraction and damping of photons while propagating in Sun's interior as well as in the detector. We exclude hidden photons with kinetic couplings chi > (2.2 x 10^{-13}- 3 x 10^{-7}) in the mass region 0.2 eV < m_gamma' < 30 keV. Our constraints on the mixing parameter chi in the mass region from 20 eV up to 15 keV prove even slightly better then those obtained recently by using data from the CAST experiment, albeit still somewhat weaker than those obtained from solar and HB stars lifetime arguments.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2012

Neutrino propagation in noncommutative spacetimes

One-loop theta-exact quantum corrections to the neutrino propagator are computed in noncommutative U*(1) gauge-theory based on Seiberg-Witten maps. Our closed form results show that the one-loop correction contains a hard 1/epsilon UV divergence, as well as a logarithmic IR-divergent term of the type ln sqrt(theta p)^2, thus considerably softening the usual UV/IR mixing phenomenon. We show that both of these problematic terms vanish for a certain choice of the noncommutative parameter theta which preserves unitarity. We find non-perturbative modifications of the neutrino dispersion relations which are assymptotically independent of the scale of noncommutativity in both the low and high energy limits and may allow superluminal propagation. Finally, we demonstrate how the prodigious freedom in Seiberg-Witten maps may be used to affect neutrino propagation in a profound way.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

A bound on the scale of spacetime noncommutativity from the reheating phase after inflation

In an approach to noncommutative gauge theories, where the full noncommutative behavior is delimited by the presence of the UV and IR cutoffs, we consider the possibility of describing a system at a temperature T in a box of size L. Employing a specific form of UV/IR relationship inherent in such an approach of restrictive noncommutativity, we derive, for a given temperature T, an upper bound on the parameter of spacetime noncommutativity Lambda_NC ~ |theta|^{-1/2}. Considering such epochs in the very early universe which are expected to reflect spacetime noncommutativity to a quite degree, like the reheating stage after inflation, or believable pre-inflation radiation-dominated epochs, the best limits on Lambda_NC are obtained. We also demonstrate how the nature and size of the thermal system (for instance, the Hubble distance versus the future event horizon) can affect our bounds.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

On UV/IR mixing in noncommutative gauge field theories

In formulating gauge field theories on noncommutative (NC) spaces it is suggested that particles carrying gauge invariant quantities should not be viewed as pointlike, but rather as extended objects whose sizes grow linearly with their momenta. This and other generic properties deriving from the nonlocal character of interactions (showing thus unambiguously their quantum-gravity origin) lead to a specific form of UV/IR mixing as well as to a pathological behavior at the quantum level when the noncommutativity parameter theta is set to be arbitrarily small. In spite of previous suggestions that in a NC gauge theory based on the theta-expanded Seiberg-Witten (SW) maps UV/IR mixing effects may be under control, a fairly recent study of photon self-energy within a SW theta-exact approach has shown that UV/IR mixing is still present. We study the self-energy contribution for neutral fermions in the theta-exact approach of NC QED, and show by explicit calculation that all but one divergence can be eliminated for a generic choice of the noncommutativity parameter theta. The remaining divergence is linked to the pointlike limit of an extended object.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Photon-neutrino interaction in theta-exact covariant noncommutative field theory

Photon-neutrino interactions arise quite naturally in noncommutative field theories. Such couplings are absent in ordinary field theory and imply experimental lower bounds on the energy scale Lambda_NC ~ 1/|theta|^2 of noncommutativity. Using non-perturbative methods and a Seiberg-Witten map based covariant approach to noncommutative gauge theory, we obtain theta-exact expressions for the interactions, thereby eliminating previous restrictions to low-energy phenomena. We discuss implications for plasmon decay, neutrino charge radii, big bang nucleosynthesis and ultrahigh energy cosmic rays. Our results behave reasonably throughout all interaction energy scales, thus facilitating further phenomenological applications.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Holographic bounds and Higgs inflation

In a recently proposed scenario for primordial inflation, where the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson plays a role of the inflation field, an effective field theory (EFT) approach is the most convenient for working out the consequences of breaking of perturbative unitarity, caused by the strong coupling of the Higgs field to the Ricci scalar. The domain of validity of the EFT approach is given by the ultraviolet (UV) cutoff, which, roughly speaking, should always exceed the Hubble parameter in the course of inflation. On the other hand, applying the trusted principles of quantum gravity to a local EFT demands that it should only be used to describe states in a region larger than their corresponding Schwarschild radius, manifesting thus a sort of UV/IR correspondence. We consider both constraints on EFT, to ascertain which models of the SM Higgs inflation are able to simultaneously comply with them. We also show that if the gravitational coupling evolves with the scale factor, the holographic constraint can be alleviated significantly with minimal set of canonical assumptions, by forcing the said coupling to be asymptotically free.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Hunting up low-mass bosons from the Sun using HPGe detector

In this experiment we aim to look for keV-mass bosons emitted from the Sun, by looking at a process analogous to the photoelectric/Compton effect inside the HPGe detector. Their coupling to both electrons and nucleons is assumed. For masses above 25 keV, the mass dependence of our limit on the scalar-electron coupling reveals a constraint which proves stronger than that obtained recently and based on the very good agreement between the measured and predicted solar neutrino flux from the ^{8}B reaction. On the other hand, the mass dependence of our limit on the scalar-proton/electron coupling together entails a limit on a possible Yukawa addition to the gravitational inverse square low. Such a constraint on the Yukawa interactions proves much stronger than that derived from the latest AFM Casimir force measurement.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2011

Spacetime noncommutativity and ultra-high energy cosmic ray experiments

If new physics were capable to push the neutrino-nucleon inelastic cross section three orders of magnitude beyond the standard-model (SM) prediction, then ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrinos would have already been observed at neutrino observatories. We use such a constraint to reveal information on the scale of noncommutativity (NC) Lambda_NC in noncommutative gauge field theories (NCGFT) where neutrinos possess a tree-level coupling to photons in a generation-independent manner. In the energy range of interest (10^10 to 10^11 GeV) the theta-expansion (|theta| ~ 1/Lambda_NC^2) and therefore the perturbative expansion in terms of Lambda_NC retains no longer its meaningful character, forcing us to resort to those NC field-theoretical frameworks involving the full theta-resummation. Our numerical analysis of the contribution to the process coming from the photon exchange, pins impeccably down a lower bound on Lambda_NC to be as high as around up to 900 (450) TeV, depending on the estimates for the cosmogenic neutrino flux. If, on the other hand, one considers a surprising recent result occurred in Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) data, that UHE cosmic rays are mainly composed of highly-ionized Fe nuclei, then our bounds get weaker, due to the diminished cosmic neutrino flux. Nevertheless, we show that even for the very high fraction of heavy nuclei in primary UHE cosmic rays, our method may still yield remarkable bounds on Lambda_NC, typically always above 200 TeV. Albeit, in this case one encounters a maximal value for the Fe fraction from which any useful information on Lambda_NC can be drawn, delimiting thus the applicability of our method.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Entanglement in holographic dark energy models

We study a process of equilibration of holographic dark energy (HDE) with the cosmic horizon around the dark-energy dominated epoch. This process is characterized by a huge amount of information conveyed across the horizon, filling thereby a large gap in entropy between the system on the brink of experiencing a sudden collapse to a black hole and the black hole itself. At the same time, even in the absence of interaction between dark matter and dark energy, such a process marks a strong jump in the entanglement entropy, measuring the quantum-mechanical correlations between the horizon and its interior. Although the effective quantum field theory (QFT) with a peculiar relationship between the UV and IR cutoffs, a framework underlying all HDE models, may formally account for such a huge shift in the number of distinct quantum states, we show that the scope of such a framework becomes tremendously restricted, devoiding it virtually any application in other cosmological epochs or particle-physics phenomena. The problem of negative entropies for the non-phantom stuff is also discussed.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2010

Holographic constraint and effective field theories with N-species

Effective field theories that manifest UV/IR mode mixing in such a way as to be valid for arbitrarily large volumes, can be used for gravitational, non-black hole events to be accounted for. In formulating such theories with a large number of particle species $N$, we employ constraints from the muon $g-2$, higher-dimensional operator corrections due to the required UV and IR cutoffs as well as the RG evolution in a conventional field-theoretical model in curved space. While in general our bounds on $N$ do reflect $N \simeq 10^{32}$, a bound motivated by the solution to the hierarchy problem in alike theories and obtained by the fact that strong gravity has not been seen in the particle collisions, the bound from the muon $g-2$ turns out to be much stronger, $N \lsim 10^{19}$. For systems on the verge of gravitational collapse, this bound on $N$ is far too restrictive to allow populating a large gap in entropy between those systems and that of black holes of the same size.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2009

Effective field theory, large number of particle species, and holography

An effective quantum field theory (QFT) with a manifest UV/IR connection, so as to be valid for arbitrarily large volumes, can successfully be applied to the cosmological dark energy problem as well as the cosmological constant (CC) problem. Motivated by recent approaches to the hierarchy problem, we develop such a framework with a large number of particle species. When applying to systems on the brink of experiencing a sudden collapse to a black hole, we find that the entropy, unlike the total energy, now becomes an increasing function of the number of field species. An internal consistency of the theory is then used to infer the upper bound on the number of particle species, showing consistency with the holographic Bekenstein-Hawking bound. This may thus serve to fill in a large gap in entropy of any non-black hole configuration of matter and the black holes. In addition, when the bound is saturated the entanglement entropy matches the black hole entropy, thus solving the multiplicity of species problem. In a cosmological setting, the maximum allowable number of species becomes a function of cosmological time, reaching its minimal value in a low-entropy post-reheating epoch.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Constraining theories of low-scale quantum gravity by non-observation of the bulk vector boson signal from the Sun

In this experiment we aim to detect Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the bulk gauge field, emitted in a bremsstrahlung process on solar plasma constituents, by looking at a process analogous to the photoelectric effect inside the HPGe detector. Using a generic feature of the underlying effective theory that the unknown 4-dimensional gauge coupling is independent of the number of extra large dimensions delta, we show that the expected number of events in the detector is insensitive to the true scale of quantum gravity for delta=2. With the entire data collection time of 202 days in the energy interval 1.7 - 3.8 keV, the number of events detected was as low as 1.1x10^6, compared to 2.7x10^6 from the expected high multiplicity of the solar KK excitations for delta =2. Hence, our bound from the presumed existence of new forces associated with additional gauge bosons actually conforms with very stringent bounds set from various astrophysical considerations. Baring any modifications of the infrared part of the KK spectrum, this bound would therefore rule out the possibility of observing any signal at the LHC for delta=2. Although a dependence on the fundamental scale referring to 4+delta-dimensional gravity turns on again for delta=3, the experimental sensitivity of the present setup proves insufficient to draw any constraint for delta>2.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

On Internal Consistency of Holographic Dark Energy Models

Holographic dark energy (HDE) models, underlain by an effective quantum field theory (QFT) with a manifest UV/IR connection, have become a convincing candidate for the dark energy in the universe. On the other hand, the maximum number of quantum states a conventional QFT in the box of size $L$ is capable to describe, refer to those boxes which are on the brink of experiencing a sudden collapse to a black hole. Another restriction on the underlying QFT is that the UV cutoff, which cannot be chosen independently of the IR cutoff and therefore becomes a function of time in a cosmological setting, should stay the largest energy scale even in the standard cosmological epochs preceding a dark energy dominated one. We show that, irrespective of whether one deals with the saturated form of HDE or takes a certain degree of non-saturation in the past, the above restrictions cannot be met in a radiation-dominated universe, an epoch in the history of the universe which is expected to be perfectly describable within conventional QFT.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Holographic dark energy: quantum correlations against thermodynamical description

Classical and quantum entropic properties of holographic dark energy (HDE) are considered in view of the fact that its entropy is far more restrictive than the entropy of a black hole of the same size. In cosmological settings (in which HDE is promoted to a plausible candidate for being the dark energy of the universe), HDE should be viewed as a combined state composed of the event horizon and the stuff inside the horizon. By any interaction of the subsystems, the horizon and the interior become entangled, raising thereby a possibility that their quantum correlations be responsible for the almost purity of the combined state. Under this circumstances, the entanglement entropy is almost the same for both subsystems, being also of the same order as the thermal (coarse grained) entropy of the interior or the horizon. In the context of thermodynamics, however, only additive coarse grained entropies matter, so we use these entropies to test the generalized second law (GSL) of gravitational thermodynamics in this framework. While we find that the original Li's model passes the GSL test for a special choice of parameters, in a saturated model with the choice for the IR cutoff in the form of the Hubble parameter, the GSL always breaks down.

gr-qc↗