Freeze-in Dirac neutrinogenesis: thermal leptonic CP asymmetry

We present a freeze-in realization of the Dirac neutrinogenesis in which the decaying particle that generates the lepton-number asymmetry is in thermal equilibrium. As the right-handed Dirac neutrinos are produced non-thermally, the lepton-number asymmetry is accumulated and partially converted to the baryon-number asymmetry via the rapid sphaleron transitions. The necessary CP-violating condition can be fulfilled by a purely thermal kinetic phase from the wavefunction correction in the lepton-doublet sector, which has been neglected in most leptogenesis-based setup. Furthermore, this condition necessitates a preferred flavor basis in which both the charged-lepton and neutrino Yukawa matrices are non-diagonal. To protect such a proper Yukawa structure from the basis transformations in flavor space prior to the electroweak gauge symmetry breaking, we can resort to a plethora of model buildings aimed at deciphering the non-trivial Yukawa structures. Interestingly, based on the well-known tri-bimaximal mixing with a minimal correction from the charged-lepton or neutrino sector, we find that a simultaneous explanation of the baryon-number asymmetry in the Universe and the low-energy neutrino oscillation observables can be attributed to the mixing angle and the CP-violating phase introduced in the minimal correction.Comment: 28 pages and 7 figures; more discussions and one figure added, final version published in the journa

Delayed Onset and Fast Rise of Prompt Optical-UV Emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts in Molecular Clouds

Observations imply that long \gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are originated from explosions of massive stars, therefore they may occur in the molecular clouds where their progenitors were born. We show here that the prompt optical-UV emission from GRBs may be delayed due to the dust extinction, which can well explain the observed optical delayed onset and fast rise in GRB 080319B. The density and the size of the molecular cloud around GRB 080319B are roughly constrained to be \sim10^3cm^{-3} and \sim 8pc, respectively. We also investigate the other GRBs with prompt optical-UV data, and find similar values of the densities and sizes of the local molecular clouds. The future observations of prompt optical-UV emission from GRBs in subsecond timescale, e.g., by UFFO-Pathfinder and SVOM-GWAC, will provide more evidence and probes of the local GRB environments.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, RAA 13 (2013) 57-70, typo correctio

Gravitating tensor monopole in a Lorentz-violating field theory

We present a solution of the coupled Einstein and rank-two antisymmetric tensor field equations where Lorentz symmetry is spontaneously broken, and we discuss its observational signatures. Especially, the deflection angles have important qualitative differences between tensor and scalar monopoles. If a monopole were to be detected, it would be discriminated whether or not to correspond to a tensor one. This phenomenon might open up new direction in the search of Lorentz violation with future astrophysical observations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Alternative mechanism of avoiding the big rip or little rip for a scalar phantom field

Depending on the choice of its potential, the scalar phantom field $\phi$ (the equation of state parameter $w<-1$) leads to various catastrophic fates of the universe including big rip, little rip and other future singularity. For example, big rip results from the evolution of the phantom field with an exponential potential and little rip stems from a quadratic potential in general relativity (GR). By choosing the same potential as in GR, we suggest a new mechanism to avoid these unexpected fates (big and little rip) in the inverse-\textit{R} gravity. As a pedagogical illustration, we give an exact solution where phantom field leads to a power-law evolution of the scale factor in an exponential type potential. We also find the sufficient condition for a universe in which the equation of state parameter crosses $w=-1$ divide. The phantom field with different potentials, including quadratic, cubic, quantic, exponential and logarithmic potentials are studied via numerical calculation in the inverse-\textit{R} gravity with $R^{2}$ correction. The singularity is avoidable under all these potentials. Hence, we conclude that the avoidance of big or little rip is hardly dependent on special potential.Comment: 9 pages,6 figure