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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2016). Small changes to the inflaton potential can result in large changes in observables. Phys. Rev. D, 93(12), 123508–5pp.
Abstract: We show that a tiny correction to the inflaton potential can make critical changes in the inflationary observables for some types of inflation models.
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Barenboim, G., & Bosch, C. (2016). Composite states of two right-handed neutrinos. Phys. Rev. D, 94(11), 116019–10pp.
Abstract: In this work, we develop a model for Higgs-like composites based on two generations of right-handed neutrinos that condense. We analyze the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the theory with two explicit breakings, setting the different scales of the model and obtaining massive bosons as a result. Finally, we calculate the gravitational wave imprint left by the phase transition associated with the symmetry breaking of a generic potential dictated by the symmetries of the composites.
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Barenboim, G., Kinney, W. H., & Park, W. I. (2017). Resurrection of large lepton number asymmetries from neutrino flavor oscillations. Phys. Rev. D, 95(4), 043506–6pp.
Abstract: We numerically solve the evolution equations of neutrino three-flavor density matrices, and show that, even if neutrino oscillations mix neutrino flavors, large lepton number asymmetries are still allowed in certain limits by big bang nucleosynthesis.
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Barenboim, G., Kinney, W. H., & Morse, M. J. P. (2018). Phantom Dirac-Born-Infeld dark energy. Phys. Rev. D, 98(8), 083531–11pp.
Abstract: Motivated by the apparent discrepancy between cosmic microwave background measurements of the Hubble constant and measurements from Type-la supernovae, we construct a model for dark energy with equation of state w = p/rho < -1, violating the null energy condition. Naive canonical models of so-called “phantom” dark energy require a negative scalar kinetic term, resulting in a Hamiltonian unbounded from below and associated vacuum instability. We construct a scalar field model for dark energy with w < -1, which nonetheless has a Hamiltonian bounded from below in the comoving reference frame, i.e., in the rest frame of the fluid. We demonstrate that the solution is a cosmological attractor, and find that early-time cosmological boundary conditions consist of a “frozen” scalar field, which relaxes to the attractor solution once the dark energy component dominates the cosmological energy density. We consider the model in an arbitrary choice of gauge, and find that, unlike the case of comoving gauge, the fluid Hamiltonian is in fact unbounded from below in the reference frame of a highly boosted observer, corresponding to a nonlinear gradient instability. We discuss this in the context of general NEC-violating perfect fluids, for which this instability is a general property.
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Barenboim, G., Denton, P. B., & Oldengott, I. M. (2019). Constraints on inflation with an extended neutrino sector. Phys. Rev. D, 99(8), 083515–9pp.
Abstract: Constraints on inflationary models typically assume only the standard models of cosmology and particle physics. By extending the neutrino sector to include a new interaction with a light scalar mediator (m(phi) similar to MeV), it is possible to relax these constraints, in particular via opening up regions of the parameter space of the spectral index n(s). These new interactions can be probed at IceCube via interactions of astrophysical neutrinos with the cosmic neutrino background for nearly all of the relevant parameter space.
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