26247082
Living on a dS brane : effects of KK modes on inflation
We develop a formalism to study non-local higher dimensional effects in braneworld scenarios from a four-dimensional effective theory point of view and check it against the well-known Garriga-Tanaka result in the appropriate limit. We then use this formalism to study the spectrum of density perturbations during inflation as seen from the lower dimensional effective theory. In particular, we find that the gravitational potential is greatly enhanced at short wavelengths. The consequences to the curvature perturbations are nonetheless very weak and will lead to no characteristic signatures on the power spectrum.
118503178
Supersymmetry, nonthermal dark matter, and precision cosmology
Within the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), LHC bounds suggest that scalar superpartner masses are far above the electroweak scale. Given a high superpartner mass, nonthermal dark matter is a viable alternative to WIMP dark matter generated via freezeout. In the presence of moduli fields, nonthermal dark matter production is associated with a long matter-dominated phase, modifying the spectral index and primordial tensor amplitude relative to those in a thermalized primordial universe. Nonthermal dark matter can have a higher self-interaction cross section than its thermal counterpart, enhancing astrophysical bounds on its annihilation signals. We constrain the contributions to the neutralino mass from the bino, wino and Higgsino using existing astrophysical bounds and direct detection experiments for models with nonthermal neutralino dark matter. Using these constraints we quantify the expected change to inflationary observables resulting from the nonthermal phase.
55251009
Reevaluating the Cosmological Origin of Dark Matter
The origin of dark matter as a thermal relic offers a compelling way in which the early universe was initially populated by dark matter. Alternative explanations typically appear exotic compared to the simplicity of thermal production. However, recent observations and progress from theory suggest that it may be necessary to be more critical. This is important because ongoing searches probing the microscopic properties of dark matter typically rely on the assumption of dark matter as a single, unique, thermal relic. On general grounds I will argue that non-thermal production of dark matter seems to be a robust prediction of physics beyond the standard model. However, if such models are to lead to realistic phenomenology, they must sit in a restrictive theoretical framework. As we will show, as a consequence of such restrictions, viable models will result in concrete and testable predictions. Although many challenges remain, the non-thermal component of such models may offer a new way to test string theories that are formulated to provide realistic particle physics near the electroweak scale.
14165857
Cosmological moduli dynamics
Low energy effective actions arising from string theory typically contain many scalar fields, some with a very complicated potential and others with no potential at all. The evolution of these scalars is of great interest. Their late time values have a direct impact on low energy observables, while their early universe dynamics can potentially source inflation or adversely affect big bang nucleosynthesis. Recently, classical and quantum methods for fixing the values of these scalars have been introduced. The purpose of this work is to explore moduli dynamics in light of these stabilization mechanisms. In particular, we explore a truncated low energy effective action that models the neighborhood of special points (or more generally loci) in moduli space, such as conifold points, where extra massless degrees of freedom arise. We find that the dynamics has a surprisingly rich structure — including the appearance of chaos — and we find a viable mechanism for trapping some of the moduli.
14279983
An Exposition on Inflationary Cosmology
This paper is intended to offer a pedagogical treatment of cosmological modeling and inflationary cosmology. In recent years, inflation has become accepted as a standard scenario making predictions that are testable by observations of the cosmic background. It is therefore manifest that anyone wishing to pursue the study of cosmology and large-scale structure should have this scenario at their disposal. The author hopes this paper will serve to `bridge the gap' between technical and popular accounts of the subject.
117013647
String gases in the early universe
110769680
THE INFLUENCE OF INELASTIC CHANNELS UPON THE POLE STRUCTURE OF PW IN THE COUPLED CHANNEL πN PWA
121630089
Resolution of the multichannel anomaly in the extraction of S-matrix resonance-pole parameters
Within the framework of a mathematically well-defined coupled-channel T-matrix model we have improved the existing multichannel pole-extraction procedure based on the numerical analytic continuation of the channel propagator, and for the first time we present the full set of pole parameters for already published amplitudes. Standard single-channel pole-extraction method (speed plot) was then applied to those amplitudes and resulting sets of T-matrix poles were inspected. The anomaly has been established that in some partial waves the pole values extracted using the standard single-channel methods differ not only from the values obtained using the analytic continuation method, but also change from one reaction to another. Inspired by this peculiarity, we have developed a new single-channel pole-extraction method based solely on the assumption of the partial wave analyticity. Since the speed plot turns out to be the lowest order term of the proposed method, the anomaly is understood and resolved.
115390182
Lambda-Polarization Measurement in pi-p-->K0Lambda in the Framework of `EPECUR' Experiment Proposal