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Bernal, N., Munoz-Albornoz, V., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2022). Current and future neutrino limits on the abundance of primordial black holes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 068–38pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) formed in the early Universe are sources of neutrinos emitted via Hawking radiation. Such astrophysical neutrinos could be detected at Earth and constraints on the abundance of comet-mass PBHs could be derived from the null observation of this neutrino flux. Here, we consider non-rotating PBHs and improve constraints using Super-Kamiokande neutrino data, as well as we perform forecasts for next-generation neutrino (Hyper-Kamiokande, JUNO, DUNE) and dark matter (DARWIN, ARGO) detectors, which we compare. For PBHs less massive than " few x 1014 g, PBHs would have already evaporated by now, whereas more massive PBHs would still be present and would constitute a fraction of the dark matter of the Universe. We consider monochromatic and extended (log-normal) mass distributions, and a PBH mass range spanning from 1012 g to ti 1016 g. Finally, we also compare our results with previous ones in the literature.
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Villanueva-Domingo, P., & Villaescusa-Navarro, F. (2021). Removing Astrophysics in 21 cm Maps with Neural Networks. Astrophys. J., 907(1), 44–14pp.
Abstract: Measuring temperature fluctuations in the 21 cm signal from the epoch of reionization and the cosmic dawn is one of the most promising ways to study the universe at high redshifts. Unfortunately, the 21 cm signal is affected by both cosmology and astrophysics processes in a nontrivial manner. We run a suite of 1000 numerical simulations with different values of the main astrophysical parameters. From these simulations we produce tens of thousands of 21 cm maps at redshifts 10 <= z <= 20. We train a convolutional neural network to remove the effects of astrophysics from the 21 cm maps and output maps of the underlying matter field. We show that our model is able to generate 2D matter fields not only that resemble the true ones visually but whose statistical properties agree with the true ones within a few percent down to scales 2 Mpc(-1). We demonstrate that our neural network retains astrophysical information that can be used to constrain the value of the astrophysical parameters. Finally, we use saliency maps to try to understand which features of the 21 cm maps the network is using in order to determine the value of the astrophysical parameters.
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Villanueva-Domingo, P., Mena, O., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2021). A Brief Review on Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter. Front. Astron. Space Sci., 8, 681084–10pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) represent a natural candidate for one of the components of the dark matter (DM) in the Universe. In this review, we shall discuss the basics of their formation, abundance and signatures. Some of their characteristic signals are examined, such as the emission of particles due to Hawking evaporation and the accretion of the surrounding matter, effects which could leave an impact in the evolution of the Universe and the formation of structures. The most relevant probes capable of constraining their masses and population are discussed.
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Villanueva-Domingo, P., Mena, O., & Miralda-Escude, J. (2020). Maximum amplitude of the high-redshift 21-cm absorption feature. Phys. Rev. D, 101(8), 083502–8pp.
Abstract: We examine the maximum possible strength of the global 21-cm absorption dip on the cosmic background radiation at high-redshift caused by the atomic intergalactic medium, when the Lyman-alpha coupling is maximum, assuming no exotic cooling mechanisms from interactions with dark matter. This maximum absorption is limited by three inevitable factors that need to be accounted for: (a) heating by energy transferred from the cosmic background radiation to the hydrogen atoms via 21-cm transitions, dubbed as 21-cm heating; (b) Ly alpha heating by scatterings of Ly alpha photons from the first stars; (c) the impact of the expected density fluctuations in the intergalactic gas in standard cold dark matter theory, which reduces the mean 21-cm absorption signal. Inclusion of this third novel effect reduces the maximum global 21-cm absorption by similar to 10%. Overall, the three effects studied here reduce the 21-cm global absorption by similar to 20% at z similar or equal to 17.
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., Villanueva-Domingo, P., & Witte, S. J. (2020). Variations in fundamental constants at the cosmic dawn. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 026–25pp.
Abstract: The observation of space-time variations in fundamental constants would provide strong evidence for the existence of new light degrees of freedom in the theory of Nature. Robustly constraining such scenarios requires exploiting observations that span different scales and probe the state of the Universe at different epochs. In the context of cosmology, both the cosmic microwave background and the Lyman-a forest have proven to be powerful tools capable of constraining variations in electromagnetism, however at the moment there do not exist cosmological probes capable of bridging the gap between recombination and reionization. In the near future, radio telescopes will attempt to measure the 21 cm transition of neutral hydrogen during the epochs of reionization and the cosmic dawn (and potentially the tail end of the dark ages); being inherently sensitive to electromagnetic phenomena, these experiments will offer a unique perspective on space-time variations of the fine-structure constant and the electron mass. We show here that large variations in these fundamental constants would produce features on the 21 cm power spectrum that may be distinguishable from astrophysical uncertainties. Furthermore, we forecast the sensitivity for the Square Kilometer Array, and show that the 21 cm power spectrum may be able to constrain variations at the level of O(10(-3)).
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