Supergravity Minimal Inflation and its Spectral Index Revisited

Natural supergravity models of new inflation are reconsidered as minimal inflationary models within slow-roll approximation. Their running spectral index is derived in a revised form with recent observational results and future refinements in mind. This will possibly determine essential model parameters with respect to Planck-suppressed operators.Comment: 7 pages, late

Affleck-Dine mechanism with negative thermal logarithmic potential

We investigate whether the Affleck-Dine (AD) mechanism works when the contribution of the two-loop thermal correction to the potential is negative in the gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking models. The AD field is trapped far away from the origin by the negative thermal correction for a long time until the temperature of the universe becomes low enough. The most striking feature is that the Hubble parameter becomes much smaller than the mass scale of the radial component of the AD field, during the trap. Then, the amplitude of the AD field decreases so slowly that the baryon number is not fixed even after the onset of radial oscillation. The resultant baryon asymmetry crucially depends on whether the Hubble parameter, $H$, is larger than the mass scale of the phase component of the AD field, $M_\theta$, at the beginning of oscillation. If $H < M_\theta$ holds, the formation of Q balls plays an essential role to determine the baryon number, which is found to be washed out due to the nonlinear dynamics of Q-ball formation. On the other hand, if $H > M_\theta$ holds, it is found that the dynamics of Q-ball formation does not affect the baryon asymmetry, and that it is possible to generate the right amount of the baryon asymmetry.Comment: 18 pages, RevTeX4, 9 postscript figures included, final version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Hadronic Axion Model in Gauge-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking and Cosmology of Saxion

Recently we have proposed a simple hadronic axion model within gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. In this paper we discuss various cosmological consequences of the model in great detail. A particular attention is paid to a saxion, a scalar partner of an axion, which is produced as a coherent oscillation in the early universe. We show that our model is cosmologically viable, if the reheating temperature of inflation is sufficiently low. We also discuss the late decay of the saxion which gives a preferable power spectrum of the density fluctuation in the standard cold dark matter model when compared with the observation.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Cosmological Moduli Problem and Thermal Inflation Models

In superstring theories, there exist various dilaton and modulus fields which masses are expected to be of the order of the gravitino mass $m_{3/2}$. These fields lead to serious cosmological difficulties, so called ``cosmological moduli problem'', because a large number of moduli particles are produced as the coherent oscillations after the primordial inflation. We make a comprehensive study whether the thermal inflation can solve the cosmological moduli problem in the whole modulus mass region $m_\phi \sim 10 eV - 10^4 GeV$ predicted by both hidden sector supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking and gauge-mediated SUSY breaking models. In particular, we take into account the primordial inflation model whose reheating temperature is so low that its reheating process finishes after the thermal inflation ends. We find that the above mass region $m_\phi (\simeq m_{3/2}) \sim 10 eV - 10^4 GeV$ survives from various cosmological constraints in the presence of the thermal inflation.Comment: 49 pages, 17 figure

Where to find a dark matter sterile neutrino?

We propose a strategy of how to look for dark matter (DM) particles possessing a radiative decay channel and derive constraints on their parameters from observations of X-rays from our own Galaxy and its dwarf satellites. When applied to the sterile neutrinos in keV mass range, it allows a significant improvement of restrictions to its parameters, as compared with previous works.Comment: 5 pp, revtex; v3: 1-sigma limits have been replaced by more conservative 3-sigma limits, a picture illustrating the data analysis methods has been ade

On the Moduli Problem and Baryogenesis in Gauge-mediated SUSY Breaking Models

We investigate whether the Affleck-Dine mechanism can produce sufficient baryon number of the universe in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking models, while evading the cosmological moduli problem by late-time entropy production. We find that the Q-ball formation renders the scenario very difficult to work, irrespective of the detail mechanism of the entropy production.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX, 5 postscript figures include

Some constraints on the Yukawa parameters in the neutrino modification of the Standard Model (nuMSM) and CP-violation

The equations connecting elements of the Yukawa matrix to elements of the active neutrino mass matrix in the \nu MSM theory (an extension of the Standard Model by a singlet of three right-handed neutrinos) was analyzed, and explicit relations for the ratio of the Yukawa matrix elements through elements of the active neutrino mass matrix were obtained. This relation can be used for getting more accurate constraints on the model parameters. Particularly, with the help of the obtained results we investigated CP-violating phase in the \nu MSM theory. We demonstrate that even in the case when elements of the active neutrino mass matrix are real the baryon asymmetry can be generated also.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, many clarifications and references adde

Late Reheating, Hadronic Jets and Baryogenesis

If inflaton couples very weakly to ordinary matter the reheating temperature of the universe can be lower than the electroweak scale. In this letter we show that the late reheating occurs in a highly non-uniform way, within narrow areas along the jets produced by ordinary particles originated from inflaton decays. Depending on inflaton mass and decay constant, the initial temperature inside the lumps of the overheated plasma may be large enough to trigger the unsuppressed sphaleron processes with baryon number non-conservation, allowing for efficient local electroweak baryogenesis.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revtex

New inflation in supergravity with a chaotic initial condition

We propose a self-consistent scenario of new inflation in supergravity. Chaotic inflation first takes place around the Planck scale, which solves the longevity problem, namely, why the universe can live much beyond the Planck time, and also gives an adequate initial condition for new inflation. Then, new inflation lasts long enough to generate primordial fluctuations for the large scale structure, which generally has a tilted spectrum with the spectral index $n_{s} < 1$. The successive decay of the inflaton leads to the reheating temperature low enough to avoid the overproduction of gravitinos in a wide range of the gravitino mass.Comment: 11 pages. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Reheating-temperature independence of cosmological baryon asymmetry in Affleck-Dine leptogenesis

In this paper we point out that the cosmological baryon asymmetry in our universe is generated almost independently of the reheating temperature $T_R$ in Affleck-Dine leptogenesis and it is determined mainly by the mass of the lightest neutrino, $m_{\nu_1}$, in a wide range of the reheating temperature $T_R\simeq 10^5$--$10^{12}$ GeV. The present baryon asymmetry predicts the $m_{\nu_1}$ in a narrow region, $m_{\nu_1}\simeq (0.3$--$1)\times 10^{-9}$ eV. Such a small mass of the lightest neutrino leads to a high predictability on the mass parameter $m_{\nu_e \nu_e}$ contributing to the neutrinoless double beta decay. We also propose an explicit model in which such an ultralight neutrino can be naturally obtained.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 9 eps figure