Ultra-Light Dark Matter in Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies

Cold Dark Matter (CDM) models struggle to match the observations at galactic scales. The tension can be reduced either by dramatic baryonic feedback effects or by modifying the particle physics of CDM. Here, we consider an ultra-light scalar field DM particle manifesting a wave nature below a DM particle mass-dependent Jeans scale. For DM mass $m\sim10^{-22}{\rm eV}$, this scenario delays galaxy formation and avoids cusps in the center of the dark matter haloes. We use new measurements of half-light mass in ultra-faint dwarf galaxies Draco II and Triangulum II to estimate the mass of the DM particle in this model. We find that if the stellar populations are within the core of the density profile then the data are in agreement with a wave dark matter model having a DM particle with $m\sim 3.7-5.6\times 10^{-22}{\rm eV}$. The presence of this extremely light particle will contribute to the formation of a central solitonic core replacing the cusp of a Navarro-Frenk-White profile and bringing predictions closer to observations of cored central density in dwarf galaxies.Comment: matching version accepted by MNRA

Distinguishing between Neutrinos and time-varying Dark Energy through Cosmic Time

We study the correlations between parameters characterizing neutrino physics and the evolution of dark energy. Using a fluid approach, we show that time-varying dark energy models exhibit degeneracies with the cosmic neutrino background over extended periods of the cosmic history, leading to a degraded estimation of the total mass and number of species of neutrinos. We investigate how to break degeneracies and combine multiple probes across cosmic time to anchor the behaviour of the two components. We use Planck CMB data and BAO measurements from the BOSS, SDSS and 6dF surveys to present current limits on the model parameters, and then forecast the future reach from the CMB Stage-4 and DESI experiments. We show that a multi-probe analysis of current data provides only marginal improvement on the determination of the individual parameters and no reduction of the correlations. Future observations will better distinguish the neutrino mass and preserve the current sensitivity to the number of species even in case of a time-varying dark energy component.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, minor updates to match the version accepted by Phys. Rev.

Future CMB tests of dark matter: ultra-light axions and massive neutrinos

Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies provide strong evidence for the existence of dark matter and dark energy. They can also test its composition, probing the energy density and particle mass of different dark-matter and dark-energy components. CMB data have already shown that ultra-light axions (ULAs) with mass in the range $10^{-32}~{\rm eV} \to 10^{-26}~{\rm eV}$ compose a fraction $< 0.01$ of the cosmological critical density. Here, the sensitivity of a proposed CMB-Stage IV (CMB-S4) experiment (assuming a 1 arcmin beam and $< 1~\mu K{\rm-arcmin}$ noise levels over a sky fraction of 0.4) to the density of ULAs and other dark-sector components is assessed. CMB-S4 data should be $\sim 10$ times more sensitive to the ULA energy-density than Planck data alone, across a wide range of ULA masses $10^{-32}< m_{a}< 10^{-23}~{\rm eV}$, and will probe axion decay constants of $f_{a}\approx 10^{16}~{\rm GeV}$, at the grand unified scale. CMB-S4 could improve the CMB lower bound on the ULA mass from $\sim 10^{-25}~{\rm eV}$ to $10^{-23}~{\rm eV}$, nearing the mass range probed by dwarf galaxy abundances and dark-matter halo density profiles. These improvements will allow for a multi-$\sigma$ detection of percent-level departures from CDM over a wide range of masses. Much of this improvement is driven by the effects of weak gravitational lensing on the CMB, which breaks degeneracies between ULAs and neutrinos. We also find that the addition of ULA parameters does not significantly degrade the sensitivity of the CMB to neutrino masses. These results were obtained using the axionCAMB code (a modification to the CAMB Boltzmann code), presented here for public use.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures. The axionCAMB code will be available online at http://github.com/dgrin1/axionCAMB from 1 August 201

Complementing the ground-based CMB-S4 experiment on large scales with the PIXIE satellite

We present forecasts for cosmological parameters from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) data measured by the stage-4 (S4) generation of ground-based experiments in combination with large-scale anisotropy data from the PIXIE satellite. We demonstrate the complementarity of the two experiments and focus on science targets that benefit from their combination. We show that a cosmic-variance-limited measurement of the optical depth to reionization provided by PIXIE, with error σ(τ)=0.002, is vital for enabling a 5σ detection of the sum of the neutrino masses when combined with a CMB-S4 lensing measurement and with lower-redshift constraints on the growth of structure and the distance-redshift relation. Parameters characterizing the epoch of reionization will also be tightly constrained; PIXIE’s τ constraint converts into σ(zre)=0.2 for the mean time of reionization, and a kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich measurement from S4 gives σ(Δzre)=0.03 for the duration of reionization. Both PIXIE and S4 will put strong constraints on primordial tensor fluctuations, vital for testing early-Universe models, and will do so at distinct angular scales. We forecast σ(r)≈5×10−4 for a signal with a tensor-to-scalar ratio r=10−3, after accounting for diffuse foreground removal and delensing. The wide and dense frequency coverage of PIXIE results in an expected foreground-degradation factor on r of only ≈25%. By measuring large and small scales PIXIE and S4 will together better limit the energy injection at recombination from dark matter annihilation, with pann<0.09×10−6  m3/s/kg projected at 95% confidence. Cosmological parameters measured from the damping tail with S4 will be best constrained by polarization, which has the advantage of minimal contamination from extragalactic emission

Entanglement of Stationary States in the Presence of Unstable Quasiparticles

The effect of unstable quasiparticles in the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of certain integrable systems has been the subject of several recent studies. In this paper we focus on the stationary value of the entanglement entropy density, its growth rate, and related functions, after a quantum quench. We consider several quenches, each of which is characterised by a corresponding squeezed coherent state. In the quench action approach, the coherent state amplitudes $K(\theta)$ become input data that fully characterise the large-time stationary state, thus also the corresponding Yang-Yang entropy. We find that, as function of the mass of the unstable particle, the entropy growth rate has a global minimum signalling the depletion of entropy that accompanies a slowdown of stable quasiparticles at the threshold for the formation of an unstable excitation. We also observe a separation of scales governed by the interplay between the mass of the unstable particle and the quench parameter, separating a non-interacting regime described by free fermions from an interacting regime where the unstable particle is present. This separation of scales leads to a double-plateau structure of many functions, where the relative height of the plateaux is related to the ratio of central charges of the UV fixed points associated with the two regimes, in full agreement with conformal field theory predictions. The properties of several other functions of the entropy and its growth rate are also studied in detail, both for fixed quench parameter and varying unstable particle mass and viceversa

Update on quetiapine in the treatment of bipolar disorder: results from the BOLDER studies

The essential features of bipolar affective disorder involve the cyclical occurrence of high (manic or hypomanic episodes) and low mood states. Depressive episodes in both bipolar I and II disorder are more numerous and last for longer duration than either manic or hypomanic episodes. In addition depressive episodes are associated with higher morbidity and mortality. While multiple agents, including all 5 atypical antipsychotics, have demonstrated efficacy and earned US FDA indication for manic phase of bipolar illness, the acute treatment of bipolar depression is less well-studied. The first treatment approved by the US FDA for acute bipolar depression was the combination of the atypical antipsychotic olanzapine and the antidepressant fluoxetine. Recently, quetiapine monotherapy has demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of depressive episodes associated with both bipolar I and II disorder and has earned US FDA indication for the same

3D simulations of Einstein's equations: symmetric hyperbolicity, live gauges and dynamic control of the constraints

We present three-dimensional simulations of Einstein equations implementing a symmetric hyperbolic system of equations with dynamical lapse. The numerical implementation makes use of techniques that guarantee linear numerical stability for the associated initial-boundary value problem. The code is first tested with a gauge wave solution, where rather larger amplitudes and for significantly longer times are obtained with respect to other state of the art implementations. Additionally, by minimizing a suitably defined energy for the constraints in terms of free constraint-functions in the formulation one can dynamically single out preferred values of these functions for the problem at hand. We apply the technique to fully three-dimensional simulations of a stationary black hole spacetime with excision of the singularity, considerably extending the lifetime of the simulations.Comment: 21 pages. To appear in PR