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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2016). New- vs. chaotic- inflations. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 061–20pp.
Abstract: We show that “spiralized” models of new-inflation can be experimentally identified mostly by their positive spectral running in direct contrast with most chaotic-inflation models which have negative runnings typically in the range of O(10(-4)-10(-3)).
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Barenboim, G., Chen, J. Z., Hannestad, S., Oldengott, I. M., Tram, T., & Wong, Y. Y. Y. (2021). Invisible neutrino decay in precision cosmology. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 087–53pp.
Abstract: We revisit the topic of invisible neutrino decay in the precision cosmological context, via a first-principles approach to understanding the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure phenomenology of such a non-standard physics scenario. Assuming an effective Lagrangian in which a heavier standard-model neutrino nu(H) couples to a lighter one nu(l) and a massless scalar particle phi via a Yukawa interaction, we derive from first principles the complete set of Boltzmann equations, at both the spatially homogeneous and the firstorder inhomogeneous levels, for the phase space densities of nu(H), nu(l), and phi in the presence of the relevant decay and inverse decay processes. With this set of equations in hand, we perform a critical survey of recent works on cosmological invisible neutrino decay in both limits of decay while nu(H) is ultra-relativistic and non-relativistic. Our two main findings are: (i) in the non-relativistic limit, the effective equations of motion used to describe perturbations in the neutrino-scalar system in the existing literature formally violate momentum conservation and gauge invariance, and (ii) in the ultra-relativistic limit, exponential damping of the anisotropic stress does not occur at the commonly-used rate Gamma(T) = (1/tau(0))( m(nu H)/E-nu H)(3), but at a rate similar to (1/ tau(0))(m(nu H)/E-nu H)(5). Both results are model-independent. The impact of the former finding on the cosmology of invisible neutrino decay is likely small. The latter, however, implies a significant revision of the cosmological limit on the neutrino lifetime tau(0) from tau(old)(0) greater than or similar to 1.2 x 10(9) s (m(nu H)/50 meV)(3) to tau(0) greater than or similar to (4 x 10(5) -> 4 x 10(6)) s (m(nu H)/50 meV)(5).
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D'Eramo, F., Di Valentino, E., Giare, W., Hajkarim, F., Melchiorri, A., Mena, O., et al. (2022). Cosmological bound on the QCD axion mass, redux. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 09(9), 022–35pp.
Abstract: We revisit the joint constraints in the mixed hot dark matter scenario in which both thermally produced QCD axions and relic neutrinos are present. Upon recomputing the cosmological axion abundance via recent advances in the literature, we improve the state-of-the-art analyses and provide updated bounds on axion and neutrino masses. By avoiding approximate methods, such as the instantaneous decoupling approximation, and limitations due to the limited validity of the perturbative approach in QCD that forced to artificially divide the constraints from the axion-pion and the axion-gluon production channels, we find robust and self-consistent limits. We investigate the two most popular axion frameworks: KSVZ and DFSZ. From Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) light element abundances data we find for the KSVZ axion Delta N-eff < 0.31 and an axion mass bound m(a) < 0.53 eV (i.e., a bound on the axion decay constant f(a) > 1.07 x 10(7) GeV) both at 95% CL. These BBN bounds are improved to Delta N-eff < 0.14 and m(a) < 0.16 eV (f(a) > 3.56 x 10(7) GeV) if a prior on the baryon energy density from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data is assumed. When instead considering cosmological observations from the CMB temperature, polarization and lensing from the Planck satellite combined with large scale structure data we find Delta N-eff < 0.23, m(a) < 0.28 eV (f(a) > 2.02 x 10(7) GeV) and Sigma m(nu) < 0.16 eV at 95% CL. This corresponds approximately to a factor of 5 improvement in the axion mass bound with respect to the existing limits. Very similar results are obtained for the DFSZ axion. We also forecast upcoming observations from future CMB and galaxy surveys, showing that they could reach percent level errors for m(a) similar to 1 eV.
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Olmo, G. J., Orazi, E., & Pradisi, G. (2022). Conformal metric-affine gravities. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 057–21pp.
Abstract: We revisit the gauge symmetry related to integrable projective transformations in metric-affine formalism, identifying the gauge field of the Weyl (conformal) symmetry as a dynamical component of the affine connection. In particular, we show how to include the local scaling symmetry as a gauge symmetry of a large class of geometric gravity theories, introducing a compensator dilaton field that naturally gives rise to a Stuckelberg sector where a spontaneous breaking mechanism of the conformal symmetry is at work to generate a mass scale for the gauge field. For Ricci-based gravities that include, among others, General Relativity, f(R) and f(R, R μnu R μnu) theories and the EiBI model, we prove that the on-shell gauge vector associated to the scaling symmetry can be identified with the torsion vector, thus recovering and generalizing conformal invariant theories in the Riemann-Cartan formalism, already present in the literature.
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Di Bari, P., Ludl, P. O., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2016). Unifying leptogenesis, dark matter and high-energy neutrinos with right-handed neutrino mixing via Higgs portal. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 044–41pp.
Abstract: We revisit a model in which neutrino masses and mixing are described by a two right-handed (RH) neutrino seesaw scenario, implying a strictly hierarchical light neutrino spectrum. A third decoupled RH neutrino, N-DM with mass M-DM, plays the role of cold dark matter (DM) and is produced by the mixing with a source RH neutrino, Ns with mass M-S, induced by Higgs portal interactions. The same interactions are also responsible for N-DM decays. We discuss in detail the constraints coming from DM abundance and stability conditions showing that in the hierarchical case, for M-DM >> M-S, there is an allowed window on M-DM values necessarily implying a contribution, from DM decays, to the high-energy neutrino flux recently detected by IceCube. We also show how the model can explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe via leptogenesis in the quasi-degenerate limit. In this case, the DM mass should be within the range 300 GeV less than or similar to M-S < M-DM < 10PeV. We discuss the specific properties of this high-energy neutrino flux and show the predicted event spectrum for two exemplary cases. Although DM decays, with a relatively hard spectrum, cannot account for all the IceCube high-energy data, we illustrate how this extra source of high-energy neutrinos could reasonably explain some potential features in the observed spectrum. In this way, this represents a unified scenario for leptogenesis and DM that could be tested during the next years with more high-energy neutrino events.
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