arXiv subjects

Robert Brandenberger

Publications and source records attributed to Robert Brandenberger.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Tracking Dark Energy from Axion-Gauge Field Couplings

We propose a toy model of Dark Energy in which the degrees of freedom currently dominating the energy density of the universe are described by a pseudo-scalar "axion field" linearly coupled to the Pontryagin density, $ \text{tr}(F \wedge F)$, i.e., the exterior derivative of the Chern-Simons form, of a gauge field. We assume that the axion has self-interactions corresponding to an exponential potential. We argue that a non-vanishing magnetic helicity of the gauge field leads to slow-rolling of the axion at field values far below the Planck scale. Our proposal suggests a "Tracking Dark Energy Scenario" in which the contribution of the axion energy density to the total energy density is constant (and small), during the early radiation phase, until a secular growth term proportional to the Pontryagin density of the gauge field becomes dominant. The initially small contribution of the axion field to the total energy density is related to the observed small baryon-to-entropy ratio.

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arXiv2016

Preheating with Fractional Powers

We consider preheating in models in which the potential for the inflaton is given by a fractional power, as is the case in axion monodromy inflation. We assume a standard coupling between the inflaton field and a scalar matter field. We find that in spite of the fact that the oscillation of the inflaton about the field value which minimizes the potential is anharmonic, there is nevertheless a parametric resonance instability, and we determine the Floquet exponent which describes this instability as a function of the parameters of the inflaton potential.

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arXiv2016

Note on Reheating in G-inflation

We study particle production at the end of inflation in kinetically driven G-inflation model and show that, in spite of the fact that there are no inflaton oscillations and hence no parametric resonance instabilities, the production of matter particles due to a coupling to the evolving inflaton field can be more efficient than pure gravitational Parker particle production.

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arXiv2016

Preheating in an Asymptotically Safe Quantum Field Theory

We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period of reheating. Since the models contain many scalar fields which are intrinsically coupled to the inflaton there is the possibility of parametric resonance instability in the production of these fields, and the danger that the induced curvature fluctuations will become too large. Here we show that the parametric instability indeed arises, and that hence the energy transfer from the inflaton condensate to fluctuating fields is rapid. Demanding that the curvature fluctuations induced by the parametrically amplified entropy modes do not exceed the upper observational bounds puts a lower bound on the number of fields which the model of Ref.~\cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea} must contain. This bound also depends on the total number of e-foldings of the inflationary phase.

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arXiv2016

Stability of the pion string in a thermal and dense medium

We investigate the stability of the pion string in a thermal bath and a dense medium. We find that stability is dependent on the order of the chiral transition. String core stability within the experimentally allowed regime is found only if the chiral transition is second order, and even there the stable region is small, i.e., the temperature below which the core is unstable is close to the critical temperature of the phase transition. We also find that the presence of a dense medium, in addition to the thermal bath, enhances the experimentally accessible region with stable strings. We also argue that once the string core decays, the "effective winding" of the string persists at large distances from the string core. Our analysis is done both in the chiral limit, which is mainly what has been explored in the literature up to now, and for the physical $h \ne 0$ case, where a conceptual framework is set up for addressing this regime and some simple estimates are done.

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arXiv2016

Searching for Cosmic Strings in CMB Anisotropy Maps using Wavelets and Curvelets

We use wavelet and curvelet transforms to extract signals of cosmic strings from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy maps, and to study the limits on the cosmic string tension which various ongoing CMB temperature anisotropy experiments will be able to achieve. We construct sky maps with size and angular resolution corresponding to various experiments. These maps contain the signals of a scaling solution of long string segments with a given string tension $G μ$, the contribution of the dominant Gaussian primordial cosmological fluctuations, and pixel by pixel white noise with an amplitude corresponding to the instrumental noise of the various experiments. In the case that we include white noise, we find that the curvelets are more powerful than wavelets. For maps with Planck specification, we obtain bounds on the string tension comparable to what was obtained by the Planck collaboration. Experiments with better angular resolution such as the South Pole Telescope third generation (SPT-3G) survey will be able to yield stronger limits. For maps with a specification of SPT-3G we find that string signals will be visible down to a string tension of $G μ= 1.4 \times 10^{-7}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Dark Energy and Dark Matter in a Model of an Axion Coupled to a Non-Abelian Gauge Field

We study cosmological field configurations (solutions) in a model in which the pseudo-scalar phase of a complex field couples to the Pontryagin density of a massive non-abelian gauge field, in analogy to how the Peccei-Quinn axion field couples to the $SU(3)$-color gauge field of QCD. Assuming that the self-interaction potential of the complex scalar field has the typical {\it Mexican hat} form, we find that the radial fluctuations of this field can act as {\it Dark Matter}, while its phase may give rise to tracking {\it Dark Energy}. In our model, Dark-Energy domination will, however, not continue for ever. A new component of dark matter, namely the one originating from the gauge field, will dominate in the future.

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arXiv2016

Particle Production in Ekpyrotic Scenarios

We consider Parker particle production in the Ekpyrotic scenario (in particular in the New Ekpyrotic model) and show that the density of particles produced by the end of the phase of Ekpyrotic contraction is sufficient to lead to a hot state of matter after the bounce. Hence, no separate reheating mechanism is necessary.

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arXiv2016

Bouncing Cosmologies: Progress and Problems

We review the status of bouncing cosmologies as alternatives to cosmological inflation for providing a description of the very early universe, and a source for the cosmological perturbations which are observed today. We focus on the motivation for considering bouncing cosmologies, the origin of fluctuations in these models, and the challenges which various implementations face.

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arXiv2016

Holographic Curvature Perturbations in a Cosmology with a Space-Like Singularity

We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in an anti-de-Sitter (AdS) bulk through a cosmological singularity by mapping the dynamics onto the boundary conformal fields theory by means of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We consider a deformed AdS space-time obtained by considering a time-dependent dilaton which induces a curvature singularity in the bulk at a time which we call $t = 0$, and which asymptotically approaches AdS both for large positive and negative times. The boundary field theory becomes free when the bulk curvature goes to infinity. Hence, the evolution of the fluctuations is under better controle on the boundary than in the bulk. To avoid unbounded particle production across the bounce it is necessary to smooth out the curvature singularity at very high curvatures. We show how the bulk cosmological perturbations can be mapped onto boundary gauge field fluctuations. We evolve the latter and compare the spectrum of fluctuations on the infrared scales relevant for cosmological observations before and after the bounce point. We find that the index of the power spectrum of fluctuations is the same before and after the bounce.

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arXiv2016

Initial Conditions for Inflation - A Short Review

I give a brief review of the status of research on the nature of initial conditions required to obtain a period of cosmological inflation. It is shown that there is good evidence that in the case of large field models, the inflationary slow-roll trajectory is a local attractor in initial condition space, whereas it is not in the case of small field models.

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arXiv2015

Cosmic Microwave Background Spectral Distortions from Cosmic String Loops

Cosmic string loops contain cusps which decay by emitting bursts of particles. A significant fraction of the released energy is in the form of photons. These photons are injected non-thermally and can hence cause spectral distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Under the assumption that cusps are robust against gravitational back-reaction, we compute the fractional energy density released as photons in the redshift interval where such non-thermal photon injection causes CMB spectral distortions. Whereas current constraints on such spectral distortions are not strong enough to constrain the string tension, future missions such as the PIXIE experiment will be able to provide limits which rule out a range of string tensions between $G μ\sim 10^{-15}$ and $G μ\sim 10^{-12}$, thus ruling out particle physics models yielding these kind of intermediate-scale cosmic strings.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Effects of Cosmic String Velocities and the Origin of Globular Clusters

With the hypothesis that cosmic string loops act as seeds for globular clusters in mind, we study the role that velocities of these strings will play in determining the mass distribution of globular clusters. Loops with high enough velocities will not form compact and roughly spherical objects and can hence not be the seeds for globular clusters. We compute the expected number density and mass function of globular clusters as a function of both the string tension and the peak loop velocity, and compare the results with the observational data on the mass distribution of globular clusters in our Milky Way. We determine the critical peak string loop velocity above which the agreement between the string loop model for the origin of globular clusters (neglecting loop velocities) and observational data is lost.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Constraints on cosmic strings from ultracompact minihalos

Cosmic strings are expected to form loops. These can act as seeds for accretion of dark matter, leading to the formation of ultracompact minihalos (UCMHs). We perform a detailed study of the accretion of dark matter onto cosmic string loops and compute the resulting mass distribution of UCMHs. We then apply observational limits on the present-day abundance of UCMHs to derive corresponding limits on the cosmic string tension $Gμ$. The bounds are strongly dependent upon the assumed distribution of loop velocities and their impacts on UCMH formation. Under the assumption that a loop can move up to a thousand times its own radius and still form a UCMH, we find a limit of $Gμ\le 5\times10^{-8}$. We show, in opposition to previous results, that strong limits on the cosmic string tension are not obtainable from UCMHs when more stringent (and realistic) requirements are placed on loop velocities.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Breaking of Spatial Diffeomorphism Invariance, Inflation and the Spectrum of Cosmological Perturbations

Standard inflationary models yield a characteristic signature of a primordial power spectrum with a red tensor and scalar tilt. Nevertheless, Cannone et al recently suggested that, by breaking the assumption of spatial diffeomorphism invariance in the context of the effective field theory of inflation, a blue tensor spectrum can be achieved without violating the Null Energy Condition. In this context, we explore in which cases a blue tensor tilt can be obtained along with a red tilt in the scalar spectrum. Ultimately, we analyze under which conditions this model can reproduce the specific consistency relation of String Gas Cosmology.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Can Back-Reaction Prevent Eternal Inflation?

We study the effects which the back-reaction of long wavelength fluctuations exert on stochastic inflation. In the cases of power-law and Starobinsky inflation these effects are too weak to terminate the stochastic growth of the inflaton field. However, in the case of the cyclic Ekpyrotic scenario, the back-reaction effects prevent the unlimited growth of the scalar field.

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arXiv2014

Cosmological Perturbations in Antigravity

We compute the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a recently proposed Weyl-symmetric theory of two scalar fields with oppositely-signed conformal couplings to Einstein gravity. It is motivated from the minimal conformal extension of the Standard Model, such that one of these scalar fields is the Higgs while the other is a new particle, the dilaton, introduced to make the Higgs mass conformally symmetric. At the background level, the theory admits novel geodesically-complete cyclic cosmological solutions characterized by a brief period of repulsive gravity, or "antigravity", during each successive transition from a Big Crunch to a Big Bang. We show that despite the necessarily wrong-signed kinetic term of the dilaton in the full action, its cosmological solutions are stable at the perturbative level.

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arXiv2014

Two Field Matter Bounce Cosmology

We re-examine the non-singular Matter Bounce scenario first developed in [arXiv:1206.2382], which starts with a matter-dominated period of contraction and transitions into an Ekpyrotic phase of contraction. We consider both matter fields, the first of which plays the role of regular matter, and the second of which is responsible for the non-singular bounce. Since the dominant matter field is massive, the induced curvature fluctuations are initially not scale-invariant, whereas the fluctuations of the second scalar field (which are initially entropy fluctuations) are scale-invariant. We study the transfer of the initial entropy perturbations into curvature fluctuations in the matter-dominated phase of contraction and show that the latter become nearly scale invariant on large scales but are blue tilted on small scales. We study the evolution of both curvature and entropy fluctuations through the bounce, and show that both have a scale-invariant spectrum which is blue-tilted on small scales. However, we find that the entropy fluctuations have an amplitude that is much smaller than that of the curvature perturbations, due to gravitational amplification of curvature perturbations during the bounce phase.

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