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Salvatore Capozziello

Publications and source records attributed to Salvatore Capozziello.

At least 397 records · Page 22Linked to original sources

Spiral Galaxies as Enantiomers: Chirality, an Underlying Feature in Chemistry and Astrophysics

Spiral galaxies are axi-symmetric objects showing 2D-chirality when projected onto a plane. Features in common with tetrahedral molecules are pointed out, in particular the existence of a preferred chiral modality for genetic galaxies as in aminoacids and sugars. Environmental effects can influence the intrinsic chirality of originally isolated stellar systems so that a progressive loss of chirality is recognised in the Hubble morphological sequence of galaxies.

physics.chem-ph↗

Spiral Galaxies as Chiral Objects?

Spiral galaxies show axial symmetry and an intrinsic 2D-chirality. Environmental effects can influence the chirality of originally isolated stellar systems and a progressive loss of chirality can be recognised in the Hubble sequence. We point out a preferential modality for genetic galaxies as in microscopic systems like aminoacids, sugars or neutrinos. This feature could be the remnant of a primordial symmetry breaking characterizing systems at all scales.

astro-ph↗

Chiral Tetrahedrons as Unitary Quaternions: Molecules and Particles Under the Same Standard?

Chiral tetrahedral molecules can be dealt under the standard of quaternionic algebra. Specifically, non-commutativity of quaternions is a feature directly related to the chirality of molecules. It is shown that a quaternionic representation naturally comes out from empirical Fischer projections and the action of the related algebra on the quantum states of molecules is studied. Analogies with fundamental particle physics are discussed.

physics.chem-ph↗

Newtonian limit of Extended Theories of Gravity

Newtonian limit of Extended Theories of Gravity (in particular, higher--order and scalar--tensor theories) is theoretically discussed taking into account recent observational and experimental results.

gr-qc↗

Neutrino mixing as a source for cosmological constant

We report on recent results showing that neutrino mixing may lead to a non-zero contribution to the cosmological constant. This contribution is of a completely different nature with respect to the usual one by a massive spinor field. We also study the problem of field mixing in Quantum Field Theory in curved space-time, for the case of a scalar field in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric.

hep-th↗

Neutrino mixing and cosmological constant

We report on the recent result that the non--perturbative vacuum structure associated with neutrino mixing leads to a non--zero contribution to the value of the cosmological constant. Its value is estimated by using the natural cut--off appearing in the quantum field theory formalism for neutrino mixing.

hep-th↗

Conformal aspects of Palatini approach in Extended Theories of Gravity

The debate on the physical relevance of conformal transformations can be faced by taking the Palatini approach into account to gravitational theories. We show that conformal transformations are not only a mathematical tool to disentangle gravitational and matter degrees of freedom (passing from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame) but they acquire a physical meaning considering the bi-metric structure of Palatini approach which allows to distinguish between spacetime structure and geodesic structure. Examples of higher-order and non-minimally coupled theories are worked out and relevant cosmological solutions in Einstein frame and Jordan frames are discussed showing that also the interpretation of cosmological observations can drastically change depending on the adopted frame.

hep-th↗

Scaling Dark Energy

We investigate the possibility of a dark energy component that is scaling with epochs. A phenomenological model is introduced whose energy density depends on the redshift in such a way that a smooth transition among the three dominant phases of the universe evolution (radiation era, matter domination, asymptotic de Sitter state) is achieved. We use the WMAP cosmic microwave background data and the luminosity distances of Type Ia Supernovae to test whether this data can provide a signal for scaling.

astro-ph↗

Cosmological Black Holes as Seeds of Voids in Galaxy Distribution

Deep surveys indicate a bubbly structure of cosmological large scale which should be the result of evolution of primordial density perturbations. Several models have been proposed to explain origin and dynamics of such features but, till now, no exhaustive and fully consistent theory has been found. We discuss a model where cosmological black holes, deriving from primordial perturbations, are the seeds for large-scale-structure voids. We give details of dynamics and accretion of the system voids-cosmological black holes from the epochs $(z\simeq10^{3})$ till now finding that void of $40h^{-1}Mpc$ of diameter and under-density of -0.9 will fits the observations without conflicting with the homogeneity and isotropy of cosmic microwave background radiation.

astro-ph↗

Newtonian limit of String-Dilaton Gravity

We study the weak-field limit of string-dilaton gravity and derive corrections to the Newtonian potential which strength directly depends on the self interaction potential and the nonminimal coupling of the dilaton scalar field. We discuss also possible astrophysical applications of the results, in particular the flat rotation curves of spiral galaxies.

gr-qc↗

Neural Networks and Photometric Redshifts

We present a neural network based approach to the determination of photometric redshift. The method was tested on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release (SDSS-EDR) reaching an accuracy comparable and, in some cases, better than SED template fitting techniques. Different neural networks architecture have been tested and the combination of a Multi Layer Perceptron with 1 hidden layer (22 neurons) operated in a Bayesian framework, with a Self Organizing Map used to estimate the accuracy of the results, turned out to be the most effective. In the best experiment, the implemented network reached an accuracy of 0.020 (interquartile error) in the range 0<zphot<0.3, and of 0.022 in the range 0<zphot<0.5.

astro-ph↗

Curvature Quintessence

The issues of quintessence and cosmic acceleration can be discussed in the framework of higher order theories of gravity. We can define effective pressure and energy density directly connected to the Ricci scalar of curvature of a generic fourth order theory and then ask for the conditions to get an accelerated expansion. Exact accelerated expanding solutions can be achieved for several fourth order theories so that we get an alternative scheme to the standard quintessence scalar field, minimally coupled to gravity, usually adopted. We discuss also conformal transformations in order to see the links of quintessence between the Jordan and Einstein frames.

gr-qc↗

Higher order corrections to lensing parameters for extended gravitational lenses

We discuss the contribution to the characteristic lensing quantities, i.e. the deflection angle and Einstein radius, due to the higher order terms (e.g. the gravitomagnetic terms) considered in the lens potential. The cases we analyze are the singular isothermal sphere and the disk of spiral galaxies. It is possible to see that the perturbative effects could be of the order 10^{-3} with respect to the ordinary terms of weak field and thin lens approximations, so that it is not a far hypothesis to obtain evidences of them in a next future by suitable experiments.

astro-ph↗

Non-Newtonian Gravity, Fluctuative Hypothesis and the Sizes of Astrophysical Structures

We show that the characteristic sizes of astrophysical and cosmological structures, where gravity is the only overall relevant interaction assembling the system, have a phenomenological relation to the microscopic scales whose order of magnitude is essentially ruled by the Compton wavelength of the proton. This result agrees with the absence of screening mechanisms for the gravitational interaction and could be connected to the presence of Yukawa correcting terms in the Newtonian potential which introduce typical interaction lengths. Furthermore, we are able to justify, in a straightforward way, the Sanders--postulated mass of a vector boson considered in order to obtain the characteristic sizes of galaxies.

gr-qc↗

Stability and size of galaxies from Planck's constant

Stability and characterisitic geometrical and kinematical sizes of galaxies are strictly related to a minimal characteristic action whose value is of order $h$, the Planck constant. We infer that quantum mechanics, in some sense, determines the structure and the size of galaxies.

gr-qc↗

Quantum Signature of Cosmological Large Scale Structures

We demonstrate that to all large scale cosmological structures where gravitation is the only overall relevant interaction assembling the system (e.g. galaxies), there is associated a characteristic unit of action per particle whose order of magnitude coincides with the Planck action constant $h$. This result extends the class of physical systems for which quantum coherence can act on macroscopic scales (as e.g. in superconductivity) and agrees with the absence of screening mechanisms for the gravitational forces, as predicted by some renormalizable quantum field theories of gravity. It also seems to support those lines of thought invoking that large scale structures in the Universe should be connected to quantum primordial perturbations as requested by inflation, that the Newton constant should vary with time and distance and, finally, that gravity should be considered as an effective interaction induced by quantization.

gr-qc↗

Some aspects of the cosmological conformal equivalence between ``Jordan Frame'' and ``Einstein Frame''

The conformal equivalence between Jordan frame and Einstein frame can be used in order to search for exact solutions in general theories of gravity in which scalar fields are minimally or nonminimally coupled with geometry. In the cosmological arena a relevant role is played by the time parameter in which dynamics is described. In this paper we discuss such issues considering also if cosmological Noether symmetries in the ``point--like'' Lagrangian are conformally preserved. Through this analysis and through also a careful analysis of the cosmological parameters Ωand Λ, it is possible to contribute to the discussion on which is the physical system.

gr-qc↗