arXiv subjects

Wolung Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Wolung Lee.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

Constraining the dark-energy equation of state with cosmological data

Recently, the observed equation of state for dark energy appears to favor values below $-1$. The tendency implies that the nature of dark energy may be quite different from that of the cosmological constant. In view of the adjustment on the equation of state keeps decreasing, the introduction of the phantom energy seems inevitable. By employing observational constraints from supernovae and from the acoustic scale in which the accuracy of the data has become extraordinary, we apply a phenomenological scenario to be acquainted with the evolution of our universe. The demonstration on the constrained unfolding of the phantom energy shows the model has high consistency with the current observation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Primordial black holes and associated gravitational waves in axion monodromy inflation

In the axion monodromy inflation, the inflation is driven by the axion with super-Planckian field values in a monomial potential with superimposed sinusoidal modulations. The coupling of the axion to massless gauge fields can induce copious particle production during inflation, resulting in large non-Gaussian curvature perturbation that leads to the formation of primordial black holes. In this paper, we explore the parameter space in the axion monodromy inflation model that favors the formation of primordial black holes with masses ranging from $10^8$ grams to $20$ solar masses. We also study the associated gravitational waves and their detection in pulsar timing arrays and interferometry experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Superhorizon curvature perturbation in ultra-slow-roll inflation

We study the growth of superhorizon modes in the curvature perturbation during an ultra-slow-roll or a large-$η$ phase in single-field inflation. In a simple toy model, we derive the two-point correlation function of the curvature perturbation and show that the requirement for causality restricts the growth rate and hence puts a lower limit on the value of $η$. The toy model is then realized by considering an inflation potential with an inflection point. Our study is useful to assessing the growth of the curvature perturbation that seeds the formation of primordial black holes.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Spherical Collapse Models with Clustered Dark Energy

We investigate the clustering effect of dark energy (DE) in the formation of galaxy clusters using the spherical collapse model. Assuming a fully clustered DE component, the spherical overdense region is treated as an isolated system which conserves the energy separately for both matter and DE inside the spherical region. Then, by introducing a parameter $r$ to characterize the degree of DE clustering, which is defined by the nonlinear density contrast ratio of matter to DE at turnaround in the recollapsing process, i.e. $r\equiv \nld_{\de,\ta}/\nld_{\m,\ta}$, we are able to uniquely determine the spherical collapsing process and hence obtain the virialized overdensity $\Dvir$ through a proper virialization scheme. Estimation of the virialized overdensities from current observation on galaxy clusters suggests that $0.5 < r < 0.8$ at $1σ$ level for the clustered DE with $w < -0.9$. Also, we compare our method to the linear perturbation theory that deals with the growth of DE perturbation at early times. While both results are consistent with each other, our method is practically simple and it shows that the collapse process is rather independent of initial DE perturbation and its evolution at early times.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Production of high stellar-mass primordial black holes in trapped inflation

Trapped inflation has been proposed to provide a successful inflation with a steep potential. We discuss the formation of primordial black holes in the trapped inflationary scenario. We show that primordial black holes are naturally produced during inflation with a steep trapping potential. In particular, we have given a recipe for an inflaton potential with which particle production can induce large non-Gaussian curvature perturbation that leads to the formation of high stellar-mass primordial black holes. These primordial black holes could be dark matter observed by the LIGO detectors through a binary black-hole merger. At the end, we have given an attempt to realize the required inflaton potential in the axion monodromy inflation, and discussed the gravitational waves sourced by the particle production.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

A numerical study of pseudoscalar inflation with an axion-gauge field coupling

A numerical study of a pseudoscalar inflation having an axion-photon-like coupling is performed by solving numerically the coupled differential equations of motion for inflaton and photon mode functions from the onset of inflation to the end of reheating. The backreaction due to particle production is also included self-consistently. We find that this particular inflation model realizes the idea of a warm inflation in which a steady thermal bath is established by the particle production. In most cases this thermal bath exceeds the amount of radiation released in the reheating process. In the strong coupling regime, the transition from the inflationary to the radiation-dominated phase does not involve either a preheating or reheating process. In addition, energy density peaks produced near the end of inflation may lead to the formation of primordial black holes.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Inflationary dilaton-axion magnetogenesis

We discuss the generation of primordial magnetic fields during inflation in the dilaton-axion electromagnetism, in which the dilaton and axion dynamics are introduced in terms of two time dependent functions of the cosmic scale factor, $I(a) F^2/4$ and $J(a) F\tilde{F}/4$, respectively, where $F$ is the electromagnetic field strength and $\tilde{F}$ is its dual. We study the form of $J(a)$ that can generate a large seed magnetic field in the weak coupling regime, $I(a)<1$. Although the $J(a)$ function is model dependent, the axion-photon coupling indeed opens up a new window for a successful inflationary magnetogenesis.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Teleparallel Poincaré Cosmology and $Λ$CDM Model

We apply the teleparallelism condition to the Poincaré gauge theory of gravity. The resultant teleparallelized cosmology is completely equivalent to the Friedmann cosmology derived from Einstein's general theory of relativity. The torsion is shown to play the role of the cosmological constant driving the cosmic acceleration. We then extend such theory to include the effect of spin and explore the possibility of accounting for the current accelerating universe by a spinning dark energy.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2011

Trapping effects on inflation

We develop a Lagrangian approach based on the influence functional method so as to derive self-consistently the Langevin equation for the inflaton field in the presence of trapping points along the inflaton trajectory. The Langevin equation exhibits the backreaction and the fluctuation-dissipation relation of the trapping. The fluctuation is induced by a multiplicative colored noise that can be identified as the the particle number density fluctuations and the dissipation is a new effect that may play a role in the trapping with a strong coupling. In the weak coupling regime, we calculate the power spectrum of the noise-driven inflaton fluctuations for a single trapping point and studied its variation with the trapping location. We also consider a case with closely spaced trapping points and find that the resulting power spectrum is blue.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Quantum noise and large-scale cosmic microwave background anisotropy

We propose a new source for the cosmological density perturbation which is passive fluctuations of the inflaton driven dynamically by a colored quantum noise as a result of its coupling to other massive quantum fields. The created fluctuations grow with time during inflation before horizon-crossing. However, the larger-scale modes cross out the horizon earlier, thus resulting in a suppression of their density perturbation as compared with those on small scales. By using current observed CMB data to constrain the parameters introudced, we find that a significant contribution from the noise-driven perturbation to the density perturbation is still allowed. It in turn gives rise to a suppression of the large-scale CMB anisotropy that may be relevant to the observed low quadrupole in the WMAP CMB anisotropy data. We also briefly discuss the implications to the energy scale of inflation and the spectral index and non-Gaussianity of the density perturbation.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Bound on the time variation of the fine structure constant driven by quintessence

The bound on the time variation of the fine structure constant ($α$) driven by the dynamics of quintessence scalar field which is coupled to electromagnetism is discussed using phenomenological quintessential models constrained by SNIa and CMB observations. We find that those models allowing early quintessence give the largest variation $Δα$ at the decoupling epoch. Furthermore, the fifth force experiments imply that $Δα/α$ is less than about 0.1%.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Off-equilibrium dynamics of the primordial perturbations in the inflationary universe: the O(N) model

Using the O(N) model as an example, we investigate the self-interaction effects of inflaton on the dynamics of the primordial perturbations. When taking interactions into account, it is essential to employ a self-consistent off-equilibrium formalism to study the evolution of the inflationary background field and its fluctuations with the back-reaction effects. Within the Hartree factorization scheme, we show that the O(N) model has at least two observable remains left behind the off-equilibrium processes: the running spectral index of primordial density perturbations and the correlations between perturbation modes in phase space. We find that the running of the spectral index is fully determined by the rate of the energy transfer from the inflationary background field to its fluctuations via particle creation processes as well as the dynamics of the background field itself. Furthermore, the amplitude of the field fluctuations turns out to be scale-dependent due to the off-equilibrium evolution. As a consequence, the scale-dependence of fluctuations yields a correlation between the phase space modes of energy density perturbations, while the one-point function of the fluctuations in each Hartree mode is still Gaussian. More importantly, the mode-mode correlation of the primordial perturbations depends upon the dynamics of the self-interaction {\it as well as} the initial conditions of the inflation. Hence, we propose that the running spectral index and the correlation between phase-space modes would be two observable fossils to probe the epoch of inflation, even beyond.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Running spectral index and mode-mode correlation of inflationary perturbations from off-equilibrium effects

We study the off-equilibrium effects of inflaton on the dynamics of primordial perturbations in the O(N) model. A self-consistent off-equilibrium formalism is employed to investigate the evolution of the inflationary background field and its fluctuations with the back-reaction effects. We find two observable remains left behind the off-equilibrium processes: the running spectral index of primordial density perturbations and the correlations between perturbation modes in phase space, which would serve as the imprints to probe the epoch of inflation, even beyond.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

Correlated Hybrid Fluctuations from Inflation with Thermal Dissipation

We investigate the primordial scalar perturbations in the thermal dissipative inflation where the radiation component (thermal bath) persists and the density fluctuations are thermally originated. The perturbation generated in this model is hybrid, i.e. it consists of both adiabatic and isocurvature components. We calculate the fractional power ratio ($S$) and the correlation coefficient ($\cosΔ$) between the adiabatic and the isocurvature perturbations at the commencing of the radiation regime. Since the adiabatic/isocurvature decomposition of hybrid perturbations generally is gauge-dependent at super-horizon scales when there is substantial energy exchange between the inflaton and the thermal bath, we carefully perform a proper decomposition of the perturbations. We find that the adiabatic and the isocurvature perturbations are correlated, even though the fluctuations of the radiation component is considered uncorrelated with that of the inflaton. We also show that both $S$ and $\cos Δ$ depend mainly on the ratio between the dissipation coefficient $Γ$ and the Hubble parameter $H$ during inflation. The correlation is positive ($\cosΔ> 0$) for strong dissipation cases where $Γ/H >0.2$, and is negative for weak dissipation instances where $Γ/H <0.2$. Moreover, $S$ and $\cos Δ$ in this model are not independent of each other. The predicted relation between $S$ and $\cosΔ$ is consistent with the WMAP observation. Other testable predictions are also discussed.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

Constraining Evolution of Quintessence with CMB and SNIa Data

The equation of state of the hypothetical dark energy component, which constitutes about two thirds of the critical density of the universe, may be very different from that of a cosmological constant. Employing a phenomenological model, we investigate semi-analytically the constraints imposed on the scalar quintessence by supernovae observations, and by the acoustic scale extracted from recent CMB data. We show that a universe with a quintessence-dominated phase in the dark age is consistent with the current observational constraints.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2002

Primordial Magnetic Fields from Dark Energy

Evidences indicate that the dark energy constitutes about two thirds of the critical density of the universe. If the dark energy is an evolving pseudo scalar field that couples to electromagnetism, a cosmic magnetic seed field can be produced via spinoidal instability during the formation of large-scale structures.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1999

The origin of scale-scale correlations of the density perturbations during inflation

We show that scale-scale correlations are a generic feature of slow-roll inflation theories. These correlations result from the long-time tails characteristic of the time dependent correlations because the long wavelength density perturbation modes are diffusion-like. A relationship between the scale-scale correlations and time-correlations is established providing a way to reveal the time correlations of the perturbations during inflation. This mechanism provides for a testable prediction that the scale-scale correlations at two different spatial points will vanish.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1999

Mass Density Perturbations from Inflation with Thermal Dissipation

We study the power spectrum of the mass density perturbations in an inflation scenario that includes thermal dissipation. We show that the condition on which the thermal fluctuations dominate the primordial density perturbations can easily be realized even for weak dissipation, i.e., the rate of dissipation is less than the Hubble expansion. We find that our spectrum of primordial density perturbations follows a power law behavior, and exhibits a ``thermodynamical'' feature -- the amplitude and power index of the spectrum depend mainly on the thermodynamical variable $M$, the inflation energy scale. Comparing this result with the observed temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background, we find that both amplitude and index of the power spectrum can be fairly well fitted if $M \sim 10^{15}-10^{16}$ GeV.

astro-ph↗