Lopez Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Panotopoulos, G. (2010). Higher-order coupled quintessence. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 123525–7pp.
Abstract: We study a coupled quintessence model in which the interaction with the dark-matter sector is a function of the quintessence potential. Such a coupling can arise from a field dependent mass term for the dark-matter field. The dynamical analysis of a standard quintessence potential coupled with the interaction explored here shows that the system possesses a late-time accelerated attractor. In light of these results, we perform a fit to the most recent Supernovae Ia, Cosmic Microwave Background, and Baryon Acoustic Oscillation data sets. Constraints arising from weak equivalence principle violation arguments are also discussed.
|
Pandolfi, S., Giusarma, E., Kolb, E. W., Lattanzi, M., Melchiorri, A., Mena, O., et al. (2010). Impact of general reionization scenarios on extraction of inflationary parameters. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 123527–10pp.
Abstract: Determination of whether the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum for primordial scalar perturbations is consistent with observations is sensitive to assumptions about the reionization scenario. In light of this result, we revisit constraints on inflationary models using more general reionization scenarios. While the bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio are largely unmodified, when different reionization schemes are addressed, hybrid models are back into the inflationary game. In the general reionization picture, we reconstruct both the shape and amplitude of the inflaton potential. We discuss how relaxing the simple reionization restriction affects the reconstruction of the potential through the changes in the constraints on the spectral index, the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the running of the spectral index. We also find that the inclusion of other Cosmic Microwave Background data in addition to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe data excludes the very flat potentials typical of models in which the inflationary evolution reaches a late-time attractor, as a consequence of the fact that the running of the spectral index is constrained to be different from zero at 99% confidence level.
|
Carlson, E. D., Anderson, P. R., Fabbri, A., Fagnocchi, S., Hirsch, W. H., & Klyap, S. A. (2010). Semiclassical gravity in the far field limit of stars, black holes, and wormholes. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 124070–24pp.
Abstract: Semiclassical gravity is investigated in a large class of asymptotically flat, static, spherically symmetric spacetimes including those containing static stars, black holes, and wormholes. Specifically the stress-energy tensors of massless free spin 0 and spin 1/2 fields are computed to leading order in the asymptotic regions of these spacetimes. This is done for spin 0 fields in Schwarzschild spacetime using a WKB approximation. It is done numerically for the spin 1/2 field in Schwarzschild, extreme Reissner-Nordstrom, and various wormhole spacetimes. And it is done by finding analytic solutions to the leading order mode equations in a large class of asymptotically flat static spherically symmetric spacetimes. Agreement is shown between these various computational methods. It is found that, for all of the spacetimes considered, the energy density and pressure in the asymptotic region are proportional to r(-5) to leading order. Furthermore, for the spin 1/2 field and the conformally coupled scalar field, the stress-energy tensor depends only on the leading order geometry in the far field limit. This is also true for the minimally coupled scalar field for spacetimes containing either a static star or a black hole, but not for spacetimes containing a wormhole.
|
Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Vicente, A., Porod, W., & Staub, F. (2010). LHC and lepton flavour violation phenomenology of a left-right extension of the MSSM. J. High Energy Phys., 12(12), 077–44pp.
Abstract: We study the phenomenology of a supersymmetric left-right model, assuming minimal supergravity boundary conditions. Both left-right and (B-L) symmetries are broken at an energy scale close to, but significantly below the GUT scale. Neutrino data is explained via a seesaw mechanism. We calculate the RGEs for superpotential and soft parameters complete at 2-loop order. At low energies lepton flavour violation (LFV) and small, but potentially measurable mass splittings in the charged scalar lepton sector appear, due to the RGE running. Different from the supersymmetric “pure seesaw” models, both, LFV and slepton mass splittings, occur not only in the left-but also in the right slepton sector. Especially, ratios of LFV slepton decays, such as Br((tau) over bar (R) -> μchi(0)(1))/Br((tau) over bar (L) -> μchi(0)(1)) are sensitive to the ratio of (B-L) and left-right symmetry breaking scales. Also the model predicts a polarization asymmetry of the outgoing positrons in the decay mu(+) -> e(+)gamma, A similar to [0, 1], which differs from the pure seesaw “prediction” A = 1. Observation of any of these signals allows to distinguish this model from any of the three standard, pure (mSugra) seesaw setups.
|
Balbinot, R., Carusotto, I., Fabbri, A., & Recati, A. (2010). Testing Hawking Particle Creation By Black Holes Through Correlation Measurements. Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 19(14), 2371–2377.
Abstract: Hawking's prediction of thermal radiation by black holes has been shown by Unruh to be expected also in condensed matter systems. We show here that in a black hole-like configuration realized in a BEC this particle-creation does indeed take place and can be unambiguously identified via a characteristic pattern in the density-density correlations. This opens the concrete possibility of the experimental verification of this effect.
|
