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Vagnozzi, S., Visinelli, L., Mena, O., & Mota, D. F. (2020). Do we have any hope of detecting scattering between dark energy and baryons through cosmology? Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 493(1), 1139–1152.
Abstract: We consider the possibility that dark energy and baryons might scatter off each other. The type of interaction we consider leads to a pure momentum exchange, and does not affect the background evolution of the expansion history. We parametrize this interaction in an effective way at the level of Boltzmann equations. We compute the effect of dark energy-baryon scattering on cosmological observables, focusing on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy power spectrum and the matter power spectrum. Surprisingly, we find that even huge dark energy-baryon cross-sections sigma(xb) similar to O(b), which are generically excluded by non-cosmological probes such as collider searches or precision gravity tests, only leave an insignificant imprint on the observables considered. In the case of the CMB temperature power spectrum, the only imprint consists in a sub-per cent enhancement or depletion of power (depending whether or not the dark energy equation of state lies above or below -1) at very low multipoles, which is thus swamped by cosmic variance. These effects are explained in terms of differences in how gravitational potentials decay in the presence of a dark energy-baryon scattering, which ultimately lead to an increase or decrease in the late-time integrated Sachs-Wolfe power. Even smaller related effects are imprinted on the matter power spectrum. The imprints on the CMB are not expected to be degenerate with the effects due to altering the dark energy sound speed. We conclude that, while strongly appealing, the prospects for a direct detection of dark energy through cosmology do not seem feasible when considering realistic dark energy-baryon cross-sections. As a caveat, our results hold to linear order in perturbation theory.
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Di Valentino, E., & Mena, O. (2021). A fake interacting dark energy detection? Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 500(1), L22–L26.
Abstract: Models involving an interaction between the dark matter and the dark energy sectors have been proposed to alleviate the long-standing Hubble constant tension. In this paper, we analyse whether the constraints and potential hints obtained for these interacting models remain unchanged when using simulated Planck data. Interestingly, our simulations indicate that a dangerous fake detection for a non-zero interaction among the dark matter and the dark energy fluids could arise when dealing with current cosmic microwave background (CMB) Planck measurements alone. The very same hypothesis is tested against future CMB observations, finding that only cosmic variance limited polarization experiments, such as PICO or PRISM, could be able to break the existing parameter degeneracies and provide reliable cosmological constraints. This paper underlines the extreme importance of confronting the results arising from data analyses with those obtained with simulations when extracting cosmological limits within exotic cosmological scenarios.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), Colomer, M., Gozzini, R., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Illuminati, G., Khan-Chowdhury, N. R., et al. (2021). Constraining the contribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts to the high-energy diffuse neutrino flux with 10 yr of ANTARES data. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 500(4), 5614–5628.
Abstract: Addressing the origin of the astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube is of paramount importance. Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are among the few astrophysical sources capable of achieving the required energy to contribute to such neutrino flux through p gamma interactions. In this work, ANTARFS data have been used to search for upward going muon neutrinos in spatial and temporal coincidence with 784 GRBs occurred from 2007 to 2017. For each GRB, the expected neutrino flux has been calculated in the framework of the internal shock model and the impact of the lack of knowledge on the majority of source redshifts and on other intrinsic parameters of the emission mechanism has been quantified. It is found that the model parameters that set the radial distance where shock collisions occur have the largest impact on neutrino flux expectations. In particular, the bulk Lorentz factor of the source ejecta and the minimum variability time-scale are found to contribute significantly to the GRB-neutrino flux uncertainty. For the selected sources, ANTARES data have been analysed by maximizing the discovery probability of the stacking sample through an extended maximum-likelihood strategy. Since no neutrino event passed the quality cuts set by the optimization procedure, 90 per cent confidence level upper limits (with their uncertainty) on the total expected diffuse neutrino flux have been derived, according to the model. The GRB contribution to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux around 100 TeV is constrained to be less than 10 percent.
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Giare, W., Di Valentino, E., Melchiorri, A., & Mena, O. (2021). New cosmological bounds on hot relics: axions and neutrinos. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 505(2), 2703–2711.
Abstract: Axions, if realized in nature, can be copiously produced in the early universe via thermal processes, contributing to the mass-energy density of thermal hot relics. In light of the most recent cosmological observations, we analyse two different thermal processes within a realistic mixed hot dark matter scenario which includes also massive neutrinos. Considering the axion-gluon thermalization channel, we derive our most constraining bounds on the hot relic masses m(a) < 7.46 eV and Sigma m(nu) < 0.114 eV both at 95 percent CL; while studying the axion-pion scattering, without assuming any specific model for the axion-pion interactions, and remaining in the range of validity of the chiral perturbation theory, our most constraining bounds are improved to m(a) < 0.91 eV and Sigma m(nu) < 0.105 eV, both at 95 percent CL. Interestingly, in both cases, the total neutrino mass lies very close to the inverted neutrino mass ordering prediction. If future terrestrial double beta decay and/or long-baseline neutrino experiments find that the nature mass ordering is the inverted one, this could rule out a wide region in the currently allowed thermal axion window. Our results therefore, strongly support multi messenger searches of axions and neutrino properties, together with joint analyses of their expected sensitivities.
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Giare, W., Renzi, F., Melchiorri, A., Mena, O., & Di Valentino, E. (2022). Cosmological forecasts on thermal axions, relic neutrinos, and light elements. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 511(1), 1373–1382.
Abstract: One of the targets of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillation measurements is to improve the current accuracy in the neutrino sector and reach a much better sensitivity on extra dark radiation in the early Universe. In this paper, we study how these improvements can be translated into constraining power for well-motivated extensions of the standard model of elementary particles that involve axions thermalized before the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase transition by scatterings with gluons. Assuming a fiducial Lambda cold dark matter cosmological model, we simulate future data for Stage-IV CMB-like and Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)-like surveys and analyse a mixed scenario of axion and neutrino hot dark matter. We further account also for the effects of these QCD axions on the light element abundances predicted by big bang nucleosynthesis. The most constraining forecasted limits on the hot relic masses are m(a) less than or similar to 0.92 eV and n-ary sumation m(nu) less than or similar to 0.12 eV at 95 per cent Confidence Level, showing that future cosmic observations can substantially improve the current bounds, supporting multimessenger analyses of axion, neutrino, and primordial light element properties.
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