161 research outputs found
Spatial gradients in the cosmological constant
It is possible that there may be differences in the fundamental physical
parameters from one side of the observed universe to the other. I show that the
cosmological constant is likely to be the most sensitive of the physical
parameters to possible spatial variation, because a small variation in any of
the other parameters produces a huge variation of the cosmological constant. It
therefore provides a very powerful {\em indirect} evidence against spatial
gradients or temporal variation in the other fundamental physical parameters,
at least 40 orders of magnitude more powerful than direct experimental
constraints. Moreover, a gradient may potentially appear in theories where the
variability of the cosmological constant is connected to an anthropic selection
mechanism, invoked to explain the smallness of this parameter. In the Hubble
damping mechanism for anthropic selection, I calculate the possible gradient.
While this mechanism demonstrates the existence of this effect, it is too small
to be seen experimentally, except possibly if inflation happens around the
Planck scale.Comment: 12 page
Chiral bosonization for non-commutative fields
A model of chiral bosons on a non-commutative field space is constructed and
new generalized bosonization (fermionization) rules for these fields are given.
The conformal structure of the theory is characterized by a level of the
Kac-Moody algebra equal to where is the
non-commutativity parameter and chiral bosons living in a non-commutative
fields space are described by a rational conformal field theory with the
central charge of the Virasoro algebra equal to 1. The non-commutative chiral
bosons are shown to correspond to a free fermion moving with a speed equal to where is the speed of light. Lorentz
invariance remains intact if is rescaled by . The
dispersion relation for bosons and fermions, in this case, is given by .Comment: 16 pages, JHEP style, version published in JHE
The Mathematical Universe
I explore physics implications of the External Reality Hypothesis (ERH) that
there exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans.
I argue that with a sufficiently broad definition of mathematics, it implies
the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) that our physical world is an
abstract mathematical structure. I discuss various implications of the ERH and
MUH, ranging from standard physics topics like symmetries, irreducible
representations, units, free parameters, randomness and initial conditions to
broader issues like consciousness, parallel universes and Godel incompleteness.
I hypothesize that only computable and decidable (in Godel's sense) structures
exist, which alleviates the cosmological measure problem and help explain why
our physical laws appear so simple. I also comment on the intimate relation
between mathematical structures, computations, simulations and physical
systems.Comment: Replaced to match accepted Found. Phys. version, 31 pages, 5 figs;
more details at http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/toe.htm
Rip/singularity free cosmology models with bulk viscosity
In this paper we present two concrete models of non-perfect fluid with bulk
viscosity to interpret the observed cosmic accelerating expansion phenomena,
avoiding the introduction of exotic dark energy. The first model we inspect has
a viscosity of the form by
taking into account of the decelerating parameter q, and the other model is of
the form . We give out the
exact solutions of such models and further constrain them with the latest
Union2 data as well as the currently observed Hubble-parameter dataset (OHD),
then we discuss the fate of universe evolution in these models, which confronts
neither future singularity nor little/pseudo rip. From the resulting curves by
best fittings we find a much more flexible evolution processing due to the
presence of viscosity while being consistent with the observational data in the
region of data fitting. With the bulk viscosity considered, a more realistic
universe scenario is characterized comparable with the {\Lambda}CDM model but
without introducing the mysterious dark energy.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, submitted to EPJ-
The First Magnetic Fields
We review current ideas on the origin of galactic and extragalactic magnetic
fields. We begin by summarizing observations of magnetic fields at cosmological
redshifts and on cosmological scales. These observations translate into
constraints on the strength and scale magnetic fields must have during the
early stages of galaxy formation in order to seed the galactic dynamo. We
examine mechanisms for the generation of magnetic fields that operate prior
during inflation and during subsequent phase transitions such as electroweak
symmetry breaking and the quark-hadron phase transition. The implications of
strong primordial magnetic fields for the reionization epoch as well as the
first generation of stars is discussed in detail. The exotic, early-Universe
mechanisms are contrasted with astrophysical processes that generate fields
after recombination. For example, a Biermann-type battery can operate in a
proto-galaxy during the early stages of structure formation. Moreover, magnetic
fields in either an early generation of stars or active galactic nuclei can be
dispersed into the intergalactic medium.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Pdf can be also
downloaded from http://canopus.cnu.ac.kr/ryu/cosmic-mag1.pd
Does accelerating universe indicates Brans-Dicke theory
The evolution of universe in Brans-Dicke (BD) theory is discussed in this
paper.
Considering a parameterized scenario for BD scalar field
which plays the role of gravitational "constant" ,
we apply the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to investigate a global
constraints on BD theory with a self-interacting potential according to the
current observational data: Union2 dataset of type supernovae Ia (SNIa),
high-redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) data, observational Hubble data (OHD),
the cluster X-ray gas mass fraction, the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and
the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. It is shown that an expanded
universe from deceleration to acceleration is given in this theory, and the
constraint results of dimensionless matter density and parameter
are, and
which is consistent with the
result of current experiment exploration, . In
addition, we use the geometrical diagnostic method, jerk parameter , to
distinguish the BD theory and cosmological constant model in Einstein's theory
of general relativity.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure
Dimensionless cosmology
Although it is well known that any consideration of the variations of
fundamental constants should be restricted to their dimensionless combinations,
the literature on variations of the gravitational constant is entirely
dimensionful. To illustrate applications of this to cosmology, we explicitly
give a dimensionless version of the parameters of the standard cosmological
model, and describe the physics of Big Bang Neucleosynthesis and recombination
in a dimensionless manner. The issue that appears to have been missed in many
studies is that in cosmology the strength of gravity is bound up in the
cosmological equations, and the epoch at which we live is a crucial part of the
model. We argue that it is useful to consider the hypothetical situation of
communicating with another civilization (with entirely different units),
comparing only dimensionless constants, in order to decide if we live in a
Universe governed by precisely the same physical laws. In this thought
experiment, we would also have to compare epochs, which can be defined by
giving the value of any {\it one} of the evolving cosmological parameters. By
setting things up carefully in this way one can avoid inconsistent results when
considering variable constants, caused by effectively fixing more than one
parameter today. We show examples of this effect by considering microwave
background anisotropies, being careful to maintain dimensionlessness
throughout. We present Fisher matrix calculations to estimate how well the fine
structure constants for electromagnetism and gravity can be determined with
future microwave background experiments. We highlight how one can be misled by
simply adding to the usual cosmological parameter set
Gravitational Radiation From Cosmological Turbulence
An injection of energy into the early Universe on a given characteristic
length scale will result in turbulent motions of the primordial plasma. We
calculate the stochastic background of gravitational radiation arising from a
period of cosmological turbulence, using a simple model of isotropic
Kolmogoroff turbulence produced in a cosmological phase transition. We also
derive the gravitational radiation generated by magnetic fields arising from a
dynamo operating during the period of turbulence. The resulting gravitational
radiation background has a maximum amplitude comparable to the radiation
background from the collision of bubbles in a first-order phase transition, but
at a lower frequency, while the radiation from the induced magnetic fields is
always subdominant to that from the turbulence itself. We briefly discuss the
detectability of such a signal.Comment: 20 pages. Corrections for an errant factor of 2 in all the gravity
wave characteristic amplitudes. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Measuring our Peculiar Velocity by "Pre-deboosting" the CMB
It was recently shown that our peculiar velocity \beta with respect to the
CMB induces mixing among multipoles and off-diagonal correlations at all scales
which can be used as a measurement of \beta, which is independent of the
standard measurement using the CMB temperature dipole. The proposed techniques
rely however on a perturbative expansion which breaks down for \ell \gtrsim
1/(\beta) \approx 800. Here we propose a technique which consists of deboosting
the CMB temperature in the time-ordered data and show that it extends the
validity of the perturbation analysis multipoles up to \ell \sim 10000. We also
obtain accurate fitting functions for the mixing between multipoles valid in a
full non-linear treatment. Finally we forecast the achievable precision with
which these correlations can be measured in a number of current and future CMB
missions. We show that Planck could measure the velocity with a precision of
around 60 km/s, ACTPol in 4 years around 40 km/s, while proposed future
experiments could further shrink this error bar by over a factor of around 2.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Revised projections for ACTPol, SPTPol and
ACBAR; included projections for BICEP2; extended conclusions; typos correcte
LRS Bianchi type I universes exhibiting Noether symmetry in the scalar-tensor Brans-Dicke theory
Following up on hints of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMB) data, we investigate locally rotational symmetric (LRS) Bianchi
type I spacetimes with non-minimally coupled scalar fields. To single out
potentially more interesting solutions, we search for Noether symmetry in this
system. We then specialize to the Brans-Dicke (BD) field in such a way that the
Lagrangian becomes degenerate (nontrivial) and solve the equations for Noether
symmetry and the potential that allows it. Then we find the exact solutions of
the equations of motion in terms of three parameters and an arbitrary function.
We illustrate with families of examples designed to be generalizations of the
well-known power-expansion, exponential expansion and Big Rip models in the
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) framework. The solutions display surprising
variation, a large subset of which features late-time acceleration as is
usually ascribed to dark energy (phantom or quintensence), and is consistent
with observational data.Comment: 25 pages, no figure, to appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio
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