arXiv subjects

Yi-Fu Cai

Publications and source records attributed to Yi-Fu Cai.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

One Small Step for an Inflaton, One Giant Leap for Inflation: a novel non-Gaussian tail and primordial black holes

We report a novel prediction from single-field inflation that even a tiny step in the inflaton potential can change our perception of primordial non-Gaussianities of the curvature perturbation. Our analysis focuses on the tail of probability distribution generated by an upward step transition between two stages of slow-roll evolution. The nontrivial background dynamics with off-attractor behavior is identified. By using a non-perturbative $δN$ analysis, we explicitly show that a highly non-Gaussian tail can be generated by a tiny upward step, even when the conventional nonlinearity parameters $f_{NL}$, $g_{NL}$, etc. remain small. With this example, we demonstrate for the first time the sensitive dependence of non-perturbative effects on the tail of probability distribution. Our scenario has an inconceivable application to primordial black holes by either significantly boosting their abundance or completely forbidding their appearance.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Gaussian processes and effective field theory of $f(T)$ gravity under the $H_0$ tension

We consider the effective field theory formulation of torsional gravity in a cosmological framework to alter the background evolution. Then we use the latest $H_0$ measurement from the SH0ES Team as well as observational Hubble data from cosmic chronometer (CC) and radial baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) and we reconstruct the $f(T)$ form in a model-independent way by applying Gaussian processes. Since the special square-root term does not affect the evolution at the background level, we finally summarize a family of functions that can produce the background evolution required by the data. Lastly, performing a fitting using polynomial functions, and implementing the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), we find an analytic expression that may describe the cosmological evolution in great agreement with observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Ultrahigh-energy Gamma Rays and Gravitational Waves from Primordial Exotic Stellar Bubbles

We put forward a novel class of exotic celestial objects that can be produced through phase transitions occurred in the primordial Universe. These objects appear as bubbles of stellar sizes and can be dominated by primordial black holes (PBHs). We report that, due to the processes of Hawking radiation and binary evolution of PBHs inside these stellar bubbles, both electromagnetic and gravitational radiations can be emitted that are featured on the gamma-ray spectra and stochastic gravitational waves (GWs). Our results reveal that, depending on the mass distribution, the exotic stellar bubbles consisting of PBHs provide not only a decent fit for the ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray spectrum reported by the recent LHAASO experiment, but also predict GW signals that are expected to be tested by the forthcoming GW surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

N-body simulations, halo mass functions, and halo density profile in $f(T)$ gravity

We perform N-body simulations for $f(T)$ gravity using the ME-Gadget code, in order to investigate for the first time the structure formation process in detail. Focusing on the power-law model, and considering the model-parameter to be consistent within 1$σ$ with all other cosmological datasets (such as SNIa, BAO, CMB, CC), we show that there are clear observational differences between $Λ$CDM cosmology and $f(T)$ gravity, due to the modifications brought about the latter in the Hubble function evolution and the effective $Newton\prime s$ constant. We extract the matter density distribution, matter power spectrum, counts-in-cells, halo mass function and excess surface density (ESD) around low density positions (LDPs) at present time. Concerning the matter power spectrum we find a difference from $Λ$CDM scenario, which is attributed to about 2/3 to the different expansion and to about 1/3 to the effective gravitational constant. Additionally, we find a difference in the cells, which is significantly larger than the Poisson error, which may be distinguishable with weak-lensing reconstructed mass maps. Moreover, we show that there are different massive halos with mass $M>10^{14}M_{\odot}/h$, which may be distinguishable with statistical measurements of cluster number counting, and we find that the ESD around LDPs is mildly different. In conclusion, high-lighting possible smoking guns, we show that large scale structure can indeed lead us to distinguish General Relativity and $Λ$CDM cosmology from $f(T)$ gravity.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Experimental Constraints on Exotic Spin-Dependent Interactions by a Magnetometer with Ensembles of Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond

Improved constraints on exotic spin-dependent interactions are established at the micrometer scale by a magnetometer with ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. A thin layer of NV electronic spin ensembles is utilized as the sensor, and a lead sphere is taken as the source of the nucleons. The exotic spin-dependent interactions are explored by detecting the possible effective magnetic fields by the sensor. Stringent bounds on an exotic parity-odd spin- and velocity-dependent interaction are set within the force range from 5 to 500 $μ$m. The upper limit of the corresponding coupling constant, $g_A^eg_V^N$, is improved by more than three orders of magnitude at 330 $μ$m. Improved constraints of $P, T$-violating scalar-pseudoscalar nucleon-electron interactions, are established within the force range from 6 to 45 $μ$m. The limit of the corresponding coupling constant, $g_S^Ng_P^e$, is improved by more than one order of magnitude at 30 $μ$m. Our result shows that a magnetometer with a NV ensemble can be a powerful platform for probing exotic spin-dependent interactions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Future prospects on constraining neutrino cosmology with the Ali CMB Polarization Telescope

We forecast the constraints on the parameters of neutrino physics with the constructions of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature, E-mode polarization and lensing spectra for the ground-based Ali Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Telescope (AliCPT). To implement the forecast calculations, we perform numerical simulations which show that AliCPT would yield the result $σ(N_{\mathrm{eff}})=0.42$ and $σ(M_ν)=0.18$ for the first year observation. Moreover, we investigate how the instrumental parameters, such as noise level, full width at half maxima (FWHM), and sky coverage can affect the constraints on these two parameters. Our forecasting results find that a large aperture telescope with a large sky survey strategy would significant improve the current constraints.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Beating the Lyth bound by parametric resonance during inflation

We propose a novel mechanism for enhancing the primordial gravitational waves without significantly affecting the curvature perturbations produced during inflation. This is achieved due to non-linear sourcing of resonantly amplified scalar field fluctuations. Our result is an explicit scale-dependent counter-example of the famous Lyth bound, which opens up a promising perspective of producing detectable inflationary tensor modes with low-scale inflation and a sub-Planckian field excursion. We explicitly demonstrate the testability of our mechanism with upcoming Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Scalar and Tensor Perturbations in DHOST Bounce Cosmology

We investigate the bounce realization in the framework of DHOST cosmology, focusing on the relation with observables. We perform a detailed analysis of the scalar and tensor perturbations during the Ekpyrotic contraction phase, the bounce phase, and the fast-roll expansion phase, calculating the power spectra, the spectral indices, and the tensor to-scalar ratio. Furthermore, we study the initial conditions, incorporating perturbations generated by Ekpyrotic vacuum fluctuations, by matter vacuum fluctuations, and by thermal fluctuations. The scale invariance of the scalar power spectrum can be acquired by introducing a matter contraction phase before the Ekpyrotic phase or invoking a thermal gas as the source. The DHOST bounce scenario with cosmological perturbations generated by thermal fluctuations proves to be the most efficient one, and the corresponding predictions are in perfect agreement with observational bounds. Especially the tensor-to-scalar ratio is many orders of magnitude within the allowed region since it is suppressed by the Hubble parameter at the beginning of the bounce phase.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Deflection angle and lensing signature of covariant f(T) gravity

We calculate the deflection angle, as well as the positions and magnifications of the lensed images, in the case of covariant $f(T)$ gravity. We first extract the spherically symmetric solutions for both the pure-tetrad and the covariant formulation of the theory, since considering spherical solutions the extension to the latter is crucial, in order for the results not to suffer from frame-dependent artifacts. Applying the weak-field, perturbative approximation we extract the deviations of the solutions comparing to General Relativity. Furthermore, we calculate the deflection angle and then the differences of the positions and magnifications in the lensing framework. This effect of consistent $f(T)$ gravity on the lensing features can serve as an observable signature in the realistic cases where $f(T)$ is expected to deviate only slightly from General Relativity, since lensing scales in general are not restricted as in the case of Solar System data, and therefore deviations from General Relativity could be observed more easily.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Data-driven Reconstruction of the Late-time Cosmic Acceleration with f(T) Gravity

We use a combination of observational data in order to reconstruct the free function of f(T) gravity in a model-independent manner. Starting from the data-driven determined dark-energy equation-of-state parameter we are able to reconstruct the f(T) form. The obtained function is consistent with the standard ΛCDM cosmology within 1σ confidence level, however the best-fit value experiences oscillatory features. We parametrise it with a sinusoidal function with only one extra parameter comparing to ΛCDM paradigm, which is a small oscillatory deviation from it, close to the best-fit curve, and inside the 1σ reconstructed region. Similar oscillatory dark-energy scenarios are known to be in good agreement with observational data, nevertheless this is the first time that such a behavior is proposed for f(T) gravity. Finally, since the reconstruction procedure is completely model-independent, the obtained data-driven reconstructed f(T) form could release the tensions between ΛCDM estimations and local measurements, such as the H0 and σ8 ones.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

New test on the Einstein equivalence principle through the photon ring of black holes

Einstein equivalence principle (EEP), as one of the foundations of general relativity, is a fundamental test of gravity theories. In this paper, we propose a new method to test the EEP of electromagnetic interactions through observations of black hole photon rings, which naturally extends the scale of Newtonian and post-Newtoian gravity where the EEP violation through a variable fine structure constant has been well constrained to that of stronger gravity. We start from a general form of Lagrangian that violates EEP, where a specific EEP violation model could be regarded as one of the cases of this Lagrangian. Within the geometrical optical approximation, we find that the dispersion relation of photons is modified: for photons moving in circular orbit, the dispersion relation simplifies, and behaves such that photons with different linear polarizations perceive different gravitational potentials. This makes the size of black hole photon ring depend on polarization. Further assuming that the EEP violation is small, we derive an approximate analytic expression for spherical black holes showing that the change in size of the photon ring is proportional to the violation parameters. We also discuss several cases of this analytic expression for specific models. Finally, we explore the effects of black hole rotation and derive a modified proportionality relation between the change in size of photon ring and the violation parameters. The numerical and analytic results show that the influence of black hole rotation on the constraints of EEP violation is relatively weak for small magnitude of EEP violation and small rotation speed of black holes.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

CMB polarization analysis on circular scans

Most cosmic microwave background experiments observe the sky along circular or near-circular scans on the celestial sphere. For such experiments, we show that simple linear systems connect the Fourier spectra of temperature and polarization time-ordered data to the harmonic spectra of T, E and B on the sphere. We show how this can be used to estimate those spectra directly from data streams. In addition, the inversion of the linear system that connects Fourier spectra to angular power spectra offers a natural way to down-weight those modes of observation most contaminated by low-frequency noise, ground pickup, or fluctuations of atmospheric emission on large angular scale. This can be of interest for the analysis of future CMB data sets, as an alternative or in complement to other approaches that involve map-making as a first analysis step.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Testing the ALP-photon coupling with polarization measurements of Sagittarius A*

Ultra-light bosons such as axions or axion-like particles (ALPs), are promising candidates to solve the dark matter problem. A unique way to detect such ALPs is to search for the periodic oscillation feature of the position angles of linearly polarized photons emitted from the regions where ALP dark matter forms a solitonic core. In this work, we use the high-resolution polarimetric measurements of the radiation near the super-massive black hole (SMBH) in the center of the Milky Way, i.e., Sagittarius A$^\star$ (Sgr A$^\star$), by a sub-array of the Event Horizon Telescope to search for the ultra-light ALPs. We derive upper limits on the ALP-photon coupling of $\sim 10^{-12}{\rm GeV^{-1}}$ for ALP masses of $m\sim (10^{-19}-10^{-18})$eV. Our results are stronger than that derived from the observations of SN1987A and a population of supernovae in the mass window of ($10^{-19}-10^{-17}$)eV. Improved polarimetric measurements with the full Event Horizon Telescope can further strengthen the constraints.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Sound speed resonance of the stochastic gravitational wave background

We propose a novel mechanism to test time variation of the propagation speed of gravitational waves (GWs) in light of GWs astronomy. As the stochastic GWs experience the whole history of cosmic expansion, they encode potential observational evidence of such variation. We report that, one feature of a varying GWs speed is that the energy spectrum of GWs will present resonantly-enhanced peaks if the GWs speed oscillates in time at high-energy scales. Such oscillatory behaviour arises in a wide class of modified gravity theories. The amplitude of these peaks can be at reach by current and forthcoming GWs instruments, hence making the underlying theories falsifiable. This mechanism reveals that probing the variation of GWs speed can be a promising way to search for new physics beyond general relativity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Measuring the gravitomagnetic distortion from rotating halos I: methods

Source galaxy images are distorted not only by a static gravitational potential, but also by frame-dragging induced by massive rotating objects like clusters of galaxies. Such effect is well understood theoretically, it is therefore of great interest to estimate its detectability for future surveys. In this work, we analyze the lensing convergence $κ$ around rotating dark matter halos. The rotation of the massive objects generates a gravitomagnetic potential giving rise to an anisotropic contribution to the lensing potential. We construct an estimator $δκ$ to describe the difference between the symmetric enhancement and reduction of $κ$ around the halo rotation axis, finding that it is well approximated by a function proportional to the halo velocity dispersion squared times a dimensionless angular momentum parameter. Using simulation mocks with realistic noise level for a survey like LSST, we test our estimator, and show that the signal from frame-dragging of stacked rotating lenses is consistent with zero within $1σ$. However, we find that the most massive cluster in SDSS DR7 spectroscopic selected group catalog has a line-of-sight rotation velocity of 195.0km/s and velocity dispersion of 667.8km/s, which is at $1.2\times 10^{-8}$ odds according to the angular momentum probability distribution inferred from N-body simulations. By studying SDSS DR7 spectroscopic selected group catalog, we show how rotating clusters can be identified, and, finding that fast rotating clusters might be more abundant than in estimates based on simulations, a detection of gravitomagnetic distortion may be at reach in future surveys

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Probing new physics with multi-vacua quantum tunnelings beyond standard model through gravitational waves

We report on a novel phenomenon of particle cosmology, which features specific cosmological phase transitions via quantum tunnelings through multiple vacua. The latter is inspired by the axiverse ideas and enables us to probe the associated new physics models through a potential observation of specific patterns in the stochastic gravitational waves background. Multiple vacua may induce the nucleation of co-existing bubbles over the phase transition epoch, hence enhancing the overall process of bubbles' nucleation. Our detailed analysis of semi-analytical and numerical solutions to the bounce equations of the path integral in three vacua case has enabled us to determine the existence of three instanton solutions. This new mechanism of cosmological phase transitions clearly predicts a possibly sizeable new source of gravitational waves, with its energy spectrum being featured with particular patterns, which could be probed by the future gravitational wave interferometers.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Primordial black holes and gravitational waves from resonant amplification during inflation

We present a new realization of the resonant production of primordial black holes as well as gravitational waves in a two-stage inflation model consisting of a scalar field ϕwith an axion-monodromy-like periodic structure in the potential that governs the first stage and another field χwith a hilltop-like potential that dominates the second stage. The parametric resonance seeded by the periodic structure at the first stage amplifies the perturbations of both fields inside the Hubble radius. While the evolution of the background trajectory experiences a turn as the oscillatory barrier height increases, the amplified perturbations of χremain as they are and contribute to the final curvature perturbation. It turns out that the primordial power spectrum displays a significant resonant peak on small scales, which can lead to an abundant production of primordial black holes. Furthermore, gravitational waves are also generated from the resonantly enhanced field perturbations during inflation, the amplitude of which may be constrained by future gravitational wave interferometers.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

New test on general relativity and $f(T)$ torsional gravity from galaxy-galaxy weak lensing surveys

We use galaxy-galaxy weak lensing data to perform a novel test on general relativity (GR) and $f(T)$ torsional gravity. In particular, we impose strong constraints using the torsional (teleparallel) formulation of gravity in which the deviation from GR is quantified by a single parameter $α$, an approximation which is always valid at low-redshift Universe and weak gravitational fields. We calculate the difference in the deflection angle and eventually derive the modified excess surface density profile, which is mainly affected at small scales. Confronting the predictions with weak lensing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7, we obtain the upper bound on the deviation parameter, which, expressed via the dimensionless percentage in the Universe energy content, reads as ${\rm{log_{10}}}Ω_α\le -18.52_{-0.42}^{+0.80}$(stat)$_{-0.37}^{+1.50}$(sys)$ [R_c/0.015R_{200}]$ with systematics mainly arising from the modelling of astrophysics, upon a reasonable choice of cut-off radius for $f(T)$ gravity in form of $T + αT^2$. To our knowledge, this is the first time that GR is verified at such an accuracy at the corresponding scales.

astro-ph.CO↗