arXiv subjects

Tomo Takahashi

Publications and source records attributed to Tomo Takahashi.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Dark energy from primordial inflationary quantum fluctuations

We show that current cosmic acceleration can be explained by an almost massless scalar field experiencing quantum fluctuations during primordial inflation. Provided its mass does not exceed the Hubble parameter today, this field has been frozen during the cosmological ages to start dominating the universe only recently. By using supernovae data, completed with baryonic acoustic oscillations from galaxy surveys and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, we infer the energy scale of primordial inflation to be around a few TeV, which implies a negligible tensor-to-scalar ratio of the primordial fluctuations. Moreover, our model suggests that inflation lasted for an extremely long period. Dark energy could therefore be a natural consequence of cosmic inflation close to the electroweak energy scale.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

The Subdominant Curvaton

We present a systematic study of the amplitude of the primordial perturbation in curvaton models with self-interactions, treating both renormalizable and non-renormalizable interactions. In particular, we consider the possibility that the curvaton energy density is subdominant at the time of the curvaton decay. We find that large regions in the parameter space give rise to the observed amplitude of primordial perturbation even for non-renormalizable curvaton potentials, for which the curvaton energy density dilutes fast. At the time of its decay, the curvaton energy density may typically be subdominant by a relative factor of 10^-3 and still produce the observed perturbation. Field dynamics turns out to be highly non-trivial, and for non-renormalizable potentials and certain regions of the parameter space we observe a non-monotonous relation between the final curvature perturbation and the initial curvaton value. In those cases, the time evolution of the primordial perturbation also displays an oscillatory behaviour before the curvaton decay.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Non-Gaussian Fingerprints of Self-Interacting Curvaton

We investigate non-Gaussianities in self-interacting curvaton models treating both renormalizable and non-renormalizable polynomial interactions. We scan the parameter space systematically and compute numerically the non-linearity parameters f_NL and g_NL. We find that even in the interaction dominated regime there are large regions consistent with current observable bounds. Whenever the interactions dominate, we discover significant deviations from the relations f_NL ~ 1/r_decay and g_NL ~ 1/r_decay valid for quadratic curvaton potentials, where r_decay measures the curvaton contribution to the total energy density at the time of its decay. Even if r_decay << 1, there always exists regions with f_NL ~ 0 since the sign of f_NL oscillates as a function of the parameters. While g_NL can also change sign, typically g_NL is non-zero in the low-f_NL regions. Hence, for some parameters the non-Gaussian statistics is dominated by g_NL rather than by f_NL. Due to self-interactions, both the relative signs of f_NL and g_NL and the functional relation between them is typically modified from the quadratic case, offering a possible experimental test of the curvaton interactions.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Cosmology with Long-Lived Charged Massive Particles

We investigate the evolution of the bound state of negatively charged massive particles (CHAMPs) with light elements and discuss its cosmological consequences and the constraint. By numerically solving the Boltzmann equation, we study the time evolutions of such bound states. Since most of negative CHAMPs are captured by He4, its bound state is positively charged and couples with the electromagnetic plasma. When charged particles constitute a dominant non-relativistic component, density fluctuations of matter cannot grow due to the acoustic damping. This results in the suppression of matter power spectrum from which a severe constraint can be obtained. By arguing constraints from other aspects of cosmology, we show that the constraint from large scale structure gives most stringent one in some representative cases.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Density Fluctuations in Thermal Inflation and Non-Gaussianity

We consider primordial fluctuations in thermal inflation scenario. Since the thermal inflation drives about 10 $e$-folds after the standard inflation, the time of horizon-exit during inflation corresponding to the present observational scale shifts toward the end of inflation. It generally makes the primordial power spectrum more deviated from a scale-invariant one and hence renders some models inconsistent with observations. We present a mechanism of generating the primordial curvature perturbation at the end of thermal inflation utilizing a fluctuating coupling of a flaton field with the fields in thermal bath. We show that, by adopting the mechanism, some inflation models can be liberated even in the presence of the thermal inflation. We also discuss non-Gaussianity in the mechanism and show that large non-Gaussianity can be generated in this scenario.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Neutrino mass from cosmology: Impact of high-accuracy measurement of the Hubble constant

Non-zero neutrino mass would affect the evolution of the Universe in observable ways, and a strong constraint on the mass can be achieved using combinations of cosmological data sets. We focus on the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the Hubble constant H_0, and the length scale for baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) to investigate the constraint on the neutrino mass, m_nu. We analyze data from multiple existing CMB studies (WMAP5, ACBAR, CBI, BOOMERANG, and QUAD), recent measurement of H_0 (SHOES), with about two times lower uncertainty (5%) than previous estimates, and recent treatments of BAO from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained an upper limit of m_nu < 0.2eV (95% C.L.), for a flat LambdaCDM model. This is a 40% reduction in the limit derived from previous H_0 estimates and one-third lower than can be achieved with extant CMB and BAO data. We also analyze the impact of smaller uncertainty on measurements of H_0 as may be anticipated in the near term, in combination with CMB data from the Planck mission, and BAO data from the SDSS/BOSS program. We demonstrate the possibility of a 5 sigma detection for a fiducial neutrino mass of 0.1eV or a 95% upper limit of 0.04eV for a fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. These constraints are about 50% better than those achieved without external constraint. We further investigate the impact on modeling where the dark-energy equation of state is constant but not necessarily -1, or where a non-flat universe is allowed. In these cases, the next-generation accuracies of Planck, BOSS, and 1% measurement of H_0 would all be required to obtain the limit m_nu < 0.05 - 0.06eV (95% C.L.) for the fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. The independence of systematics argues for pursuit of both BAO and H_0 measurements.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Effect of Background Evolution on the Curvaton Non-Gaussianity

We investigate how the background evolution affects the curvature perturbations generated by the curvaton, assuming a curvaton potential that may deviate slightly from the quadratic one, and parameterizing the background fluid density as ρ\propto a^{-α}, where a is the scale factor, and αdepends on the background fluid. It turns out that the more there is deviation from the quadratic case, the more pronounced is the dependence of the curvature perturbation on α. We also show that the background can have a significant effect on the nonlinearity parameters f_NL and g_NL. As an example, if at the onset of the curvaton oscillation there is a dimension 6 contribution to the potential at 5 % level and the energy fraction of the curvaton to the total one at the time of its decay is at 1 %, we find variations Δf_NL \sim \mathcal{O}(10) and Δg_NL \sim \mathcal{O}(10^4) between matter and radiation dominated backgrounds. Moreover, we demonstrate that there is a relation between f_NL and g_NL that can be used to probe the form of the curvaton potential and the equation of state of the background fluid.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Primordial Non-Gaussianity in Models with Dark Matter Isocurvature Fluctuations

We investigate primordial non-Gaussianity and dark matter isocurvature fluctuations in the modulated reheating and the curvaton scenarios. In these scenarios, large non-Gaussianity can be generated, on the other hand, depending on how dark matter is produced, too large isocurvature fluctuations can also arise, which is inconsistent with current observations. In this paper, we study this issue in a mixed scenario where the curvature fluctuations can also be produced from the inflaton fluctuations as well as those from a light scalar field such as the modulus and the curvaton. We show that primordial fluctuations can be highly non-Gaussian without conflicting the current constraint on isocurvature fluctuations for such mixed scenarios. However, if the constraint on isocurvature fluctuations becomes severer as expected by the Planck satellite, $f_{\rm NL}$, a nonlinearity parameter for adiabatic fluctuations, should be very small as $f_{\rm NL} \lesssim 3$, which would give interesting implications for the generation mechanism of dark matter. Non-Gaussianity from isocurvature fluctuations is also discussed in these scenarios.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Constraining Light Gravitino Mass from Cosmic Microwave Background

We investigate the possibilities of constraining the light gravitino mass m_{3/2} from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys. A model with light gravitino with the mass m_{3/2}<O(10) eV is of great interest since it is free from the cosmological gravitino problem and, in addition, can be compatible with many baryogenesis/leptogenesis scenarios such as the thermal leptogenesis. We show that the lensing of CMB anisotropies can be a good probe for m_{3/2} and obtain an expected constraint on m_{3/2} from precise measurements of lensing potential in the future CMB surveys, such as the PolarBeaR and CMBpol experiments. If the gravitino mass is m_{3/2}=1 eV, we will obtain the constraint for the gravitino mass as m_{3/2} < 3.2 eV (95% C.L.) for the case with Planck+PolarBeaR combined and m_{3/2}=1.04^{+0.22}_{-0.26} eV (68% C.L.) for CMBpol. The issue of Bayesian model selection is also discussed.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Gravitino Dark Matter and Non-Gaussianity

We investigate density fluctuations in a scenario with gravitino dark matter in the framework of modulated reheating, which is known to generate large non-Gaussianity. We show that gravitino dark matter is disfavored if primordial fluctuations have large local-type non-Gaussianity in this framework. We also briefly discuss the case with the curvaton mechanism and some other possible dark matter scenarios.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Adiabatic fluctuations from cosmic strings in a contracting universe

We show that adiabatic, super-Hubble, and almost scale invariant density fluctuations are produced by cosmic strings in a contracting universe. An essential point is that isocurvature perturbations produced by topological defects such as cosmic strings on super-Hubble scales lead to a source term which seeds the growth of curvature fluctuations on these scales. Once the symmetry has been restored at high temperatures, the isocurvature seeds disappear, and the fluctuations evolve as adiabatic ones in the expanding phase. Thus, cosmic strings may be resurrected as a mechanism for generating the primordial density fluctuations observed today.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2009

Limits on Isocurvature Perturbations from Non-Gaussianity in WMAP Temperature Anisotropies

We study the effect of primordial isocurvature perturbations on non-Gaussian properties of CMB temperature anisotropies. We consider generic forms of the non-linearity of isocurvature perturbations which can be applied to a wide range of theoretical models. We derive analytical expressions for the bispectrum and the Minkowski Functionals for CMB temperature fluctuations to describe the non-Gaussianity from isocurvature perturbations. We find that the isocurvature non-Gaussianity in the quadratic isocurvature model, where the isocurvature perturbation S is written as a quadratic function of the Gaussian variable sigma, S=sigma^2- , can give the same signal-to-noise as f_NL=30 even if we impose the current observational limit on the fraction of isocurvature perturbations contained in the primordial power spectrum alpha. We give constraints on isocurvature non-Gaussianity from Minkowski Functionals using WMAP 5-year data. We do not find a significant signal of the isocurvature non-Gaussianity. For the quadratic isocurvature model, we obtain a stringent upper limit on the isocurvature fraction alpha<0.070 (95% CL) for a scale invariant spectrum which is comparable to the limit obtained from the power spectrum.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2009

Constraints on Neutrino Masses from Weak Lensing

The weak lensing (WL) distortions of distant galaxy images are sensitive to neutrino masses by probing the suppression effect on clustering strengths of total matter in large-scale structure. We use the latest measurement of WL correlations, the CFHTLS data, to explore constraints on neutrino masses. We find that, while the WL data alone cannot place a stringent limit on neutrino masses due to parameter degeneracies, the constraint can be significantly improved when combined with other cosmological probes, the WMAP 5-year (WMAP5) data and the distance measurements of type-Ia supernovae (SNe) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). The upper bounds on the sum of neutrino masses are m_tot = 1.1, 0.76 and 0.54 eV (95% CL) for WL+WMAP5, WMAP5+SNe+BAO, and WL+WMAP5+SNe+BAO, respectively, assuming a flat LCDM model with finite-mass neutrinos. In deriving these constraints, our analysis includes the non-Gaussian covariances of the WL correlation functions to properly take into account significant correlations between different angles.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Non-Gaussianity and Baryonic Isocurvature Fluctuations in the Curvaton Scenario

We discuss non-Gaussianity and baryonic isocurvature fluctuations in the curvaton scenario, assuming that the baryon asymmetry of the universe originates only from the decay products of the inflaton. When large non-Gaussianity is realized in such a scenario, non-vanishing baryonic isocurvature fluctuations can also be generated unless the baryogenesis occurs after the decay of the curvaton. We calculate the non-linearity parameter f_NL and the baryonic isocurvature fluctuations, taking account of the primordial fluctuations of both the inflaton and the curvaton. We show that, although current constraints on isocurvature fluctuations are severe, the non-linearity parameter can be large as f_NL \sim O(10-100) without conflicting with the constraints.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

Probing the Effective Number of Neutrino Species with Cosmic Microwave Background

We discuss how much we can probe the effective number of neutrino species N_nu with cosmic microwave background alone. Using the data of WMAP, ACBAR, CBI and BOOMERANG experiments, we obtain a constraint on the effective number of neutrino species as 0.96< N_nu <7.94 at 95% C.L. for a power-law LCDM flat universe model. The limit is improved to be 1.39 < N_nu < 6.38 at 95% C.L. if we assume that the baryon density, N_nu and the helium abundance are related by the big bang nucleosynthesis theory. We also provide a forecast for the PLANCK experiment using a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach. In addition to constraining N_nu, we investigate how the big bang nucleosynthesis relation affects the estimation for these parameters and other cosmological parameters.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Primordial Helium Abundance from CMB: a constraint from recent observations and a forecast

We studied a constraint on the primordial helium abundance Y_p from current and future observations of CMB. Using the currently available data from WMAP, ACBAR, CBI and BOOMERANG, we obtained the constraint as Y_p = 0.25^{+0.10}_{-0.07} at 68% C.L. We also provide a forecast for the Planck experiment using the Markov chain Monte Carlo approach. In addition to forecasting the constraint on Y_p, we investigate how assumptions for Y_p affect constraints on the other cosmological parameters.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Non-Gaussianity, Spectral Index and Tensor Modes in Mixed Inflaton and Curvaton Models

We study non-Gaussianity, the spectral index of primordial scalar fluctuations and tensor modes in models where fluctuations from the inflaton and the curvaton can both contribute to the present cosmic density fluctuations. Even though simple single-field inflation models generate only tiny non-Gaussianity, if we consider such a mixed scenario, large non-Gaussianity can be produced. Furthermore, we study the inflationary parameters such as the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio in this kind of models and discuss in what cases models predict the spectral index and tensor modes allowed by the current data while generating large non-Gaussianity, which may have many implications for model-buildings of the inflationary universe.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Primordial Curvature Fluctuation and Its Non-Gaussianity in Models with Modulated Reheating

We investigate non-Gaussianity in the modulated reheating scenario where fluctuations of the decay rate of the inflaton generate adiabatic perturbations, paying particular attention to the non-linearity parameters $f_{\rm NL}, τ_{\rm NL}$ and $g_{\rm NL}$ as well as the scalar spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio which characterize the nature of the primordial power spectrum. We also take into account the pre-existing adiabatic perturbations produced from the inflaton fluctuations. It has been known that the non-linearity between the curvature perturbations and the fluctuations of the decay rate can yield non-Gaussianity at the level of $f_{\rm NL} \sim \mathcal{O}(1)$, but we find that the non-linearity between the decay rate and the modulus field which determines the decay rate can generate much greater non-Gaussianity. We also discuss a consistency relation among non-linearity parameters which holds in the scenario and find that the modulated reheating yields a different one from that of the curvaton model. In particular, they both can yield a large positive $f_{\rm NL}$ but with a different sign of $g_{\rm NL}$. This provides a possibility to discriminate these two competitive models by looking at the sign of $g_{\rm NL}$. Furthermore, we work on some concrete inflation models and investigate in what cases models predict the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio allowed by the current data while generating large non-Gaussianity, which may have many implications for model-buildings of the inflationary universe.

astro-ph↗