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Barenboim, G., Blinov, N., & Stebbins, A. (2021). Smallest remnants of early matter domination. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 12(12), 026–50pp.
Abstract: The evolution of the universe prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis could have gone through a phase of early matter domination which enhanced the growth of small-scale dark matter structure. If this period was long enough, self-gravitating objects formed prior to reheating. We study the evolution of these dense early halos through reheating. At the end of early matter domination, the early halos undergo rapid expansion and eventually eject their matter. We find that this process washes out structure on scales much larger than naively expected from the size of the original halos. We compute the density profiles of the early halo remnants and use them to construct late-time power spectra that include these non-linear effects. We evolve the resulting power spectrum to estimate the properties of microhalos that would form after matter-radiation equality. Surprisingly, cosmologies with a short period of early matter domination lead to an earlier onset of microhalo formation compared to those with a long period. In either case, dark matter structure formation begins much earlier than in the standard cosmology, with most dark matter bound in microhalos in the late universe.
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Jeong, K. S., & Park, W. I. (2023). Cosmology with a supersymmetric local B – L model. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 016–34pp.
Abstract: We propose a minimal gauged U(1)(B-L) extension of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) which resolves the cosmological moduli problem via thermal inflation, and realizes late-time Affleck-Dine leptogensis so as to generate the right amount of baryon asymmetry at the end of thermal inflation. The present relic density of dark matter can be explained by sneutrinos, MSSM neutralinos, axinos, or axions. Cosmic strings from U(1)(B-L) breaking are very thick, and so the expected stochastic gravitational wave background from cosmic string loops has a spectrum different from the one in the conventional Abelian-Higgs model, as would be distinguishable at least at LISA and DECIGO. The characteristic spectrum is due to a flat potential, and may be regarded as a hint of supersymmetry. Combined with the resolution of moduli problem, the expected signal of gravitational waves constrains the U(1)(B-L) breaking scale to be O(10(12-13)) GeV. Interestingly, our model provides a natural possibility for explaining the observed ultra-high-energy cosmic rays thanks to the fact that the core width of strings in our scenario is very large, allowing a large enhancement of particle emissions from the cusps of string loops. Condensation of LHu flat-direction inside of string cores arises inevitably and can also be the main source of the ultra-high-energy cosmic rays accompanied by ultra-high-energy lightest supersymmetric particles.
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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2017). Lepton number asymmetries and the lower bound on the reheating temperature. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 12(12), 037–13pp.
Abstract: We show that the reheating temperature of a matter-domination era in the early universe can be pushed down to the neutrino decoupling temperature at around 2 MeV if the reheating takes place through non-hadronic decays of the dominant matter and neutrino-antineutrino asymmetries are still large enough, vertical bar L vertical bar greater than or similar to O(10(-2)) (depending on the neutrino flavor) at the end of reheating.
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Gariazzo, S., de Salas, P. F., & Pastor, S. (2019). Thermalisation of sterile neutrinos in the early universe in the 3+1 scheme with full mixing matrix. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 014–30pp.
Abstract: In the framework of a 3+1 scheme with an additional inert state, we consider the thermalisation of sterile neutrinos in the early Universe taking into account the full 4 x 4 mixing matrix. The evolution of the neutrino energy distributions is found solving the momentum-dependent kinetic equations with full diagonal collision terms, as in previous analyses of flavour neutrino decoupling in the standard case. The degree of thermalisation of the sterile state is shown in terms of the effective number of neutrinos, N-eff, and its dependence on the three additional mixing angles (theta(14), theta(24), theta(34)) and on the squared mass difference Delta m(41)(2) is discussed. Our results are relevant for fixing the contribution of a fourth light neutrino species to the cosmological energy density, whose value is very well constrained by the final Planck analysis. For the preferred region of active-sterile mixing parameters from short-baseline neutrino experiments, we find that the fourth state is fully thermalised (N-eff similar or equal to 4).
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Bennett, J. J., Buldgen, G., de Salas, P. F., Drewes, M., Gariazzo, S., Pastor, S., et al. (2021). Towards a precision calculation of the effective number of neutrinos N-eff in the Standard Model. Part II. Neutrino decoupling in the presence of flavour oscillations and finite-temperature QED. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 073–33pp.
Abstract: We present in this work a new calculation of the standard-model benchmark value for the effective number of neutrinos, N-eff(SM), that quantifies the cosmological neutrinoto-photon energy densities. The calculation takes into account neutrino flavour oscillations, finite-temperature effects in the quantum electrodynamics plasma to O(e(3)), where e is the elementary electric charge, and a full evaluation of the neutrino-neutrino collision integral. We provide furthermore a detailed assessment of the uncertainties in the benchmark N(eff)(SM )value, through testing the value's dependence on (i) optional approximate modelling of the weak collision integrals, (ii) measurement errors in the physical parameters of the weak sector, and (iii) numerical convergence, particularly in relation to momentum discretisation. Our new, recommended standard-model benchmark is N-eff(SM) 3.0440 +/- 0.0002, where the nominal uncertainty is attributed predominantly to errors incurred in the numerical solution procedure (vertical bar delta N-eff vertical bar similar to 10(-4)), augmented by measurement errors in the solar mixing angle sin(2) theta(12) (vertical bar delta N-eff vertical bar similar to 10(-4)).
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