897 research outputs found
Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies from Scaling Seeds: Fit to Observational Data
We compute cosmic microwave background angular power spectra for scaling seed
models of structure formation. A generic parameterization of the energy
momentum tensor of the seeds is employed. We concentrate on two regions of
parameter space inspired by global topological defects: O(4) texture models and
the large-N limit of O(N) models. We use fitting to compare these
models to recent flat-band power measurements of the cosmic microwave
background. Only scalar perturbations are considered.Comment: LaTeX file 4 pages, 4 postscript figs. revised version, to appear in
PR
Interactions of cosmological gravitational waves and magnetic fields
The energy momentum tensor of a magnetic field always contains a spin-2
component in its anisotropic stress and therefore generates gravitational
waves. It has been argued in the literature (Caprini & Durrer \cite{CD}) that
this gravitational wave production can be very strong and that back-reaction
cannot be neglected. On the other hand, a gravitational wave background does
affect the evolution of magnetic fields. It has also been argued (Tsagas et al.
\cite{Tsagas:2001ak},\cite{Tsagas:2005ki}) that this can lead to very strong
amplification of a primordial magnetic field. In this paper we revisit these
claims and study back reaction to second order.Comment: Added references, accepted for publication in PR
Vector and Tensor Contributions to the Luminosity Distance
We compute the vector and tensor contributions to the luminosity distance
fluctuations in first order perturbation theory and we expand them in spherical
harmonics. This work presents the formalism with a first application to a
stochastic background of primordial gravitational waves.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
What do we really know about Dark Energy?
In this paper I discuss what we truly know about dark energy. I shall argue
that up to date our single indication for the existence of dark energy comes
from distance measurements and their relation to redshift. Supernovae, CMB
anisotropies and observations of baryon acoustic oscillations, they all simply
tell us that the observed distance to a given redshift is larger than the one
expected from a Friedmann Lemaitre universe with matter only and the locally
measured Hubble parameter.Comment: invited talk at the meeting "Cosmological Tests of General
Relativity" at the Kavli Royal Society Center for the Advancement of Science
organized by Rachel Bean, Pedro Ferreira and Andy Taylor. 14p 2 figs. revised
version: updated to match version in print in Phil. Trans. R. Soc.
Reproducing the observed Cosmic microwave background anisotropies with causal scaling seeds
During the last years it has become clear that global O(N) defects and U(1)
cosmic strings do not lead to the pronounced first acoustic peak in the power
spectrum of anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background which has recently
been observed to high accuracy. Inflationary models cannot easily accommodate
the low second peak indicated by the data. Here we construct causal scaling
seed models which reproduce the first and second peak. Future, more precise CMB
anisotropy and polarization experiments will however be able to distinguish
them from the ordinary adiabatic models.Comment: 6 pages 2 figures, revtex; minor corrections and references adde
Testing Superstring Theories with Gravitational Waves
We provide a simple transfer function that determines the effect of an early
matter dominated era on the gravitational wave background and show that a large
class of compactifications of superstring theory might be tested by
observations of the gravitational wave background from inflation. For large
enough reheating temperatures > 10^9 \GeV the test applies to all models
containing at least one scalar with mass < 10^{12}\GeV that acquires a large
initial oscillation amplitude after inflation and has only gravitational
interaction strength, i.e., a field with the typical properties of a modulus.Comment: 5 pages 2 figures, v2: changes in presentation, refs revised, matches
version in print in PR
The Cosmic Microwave Background and Helical Magnetic Fields: the tensor mode
We study the effect of a possible helicity component of a primordial magnetic
field on the tensor part of the cosmic microwave background temperature
anisotropies and polarization. We give analytical approximations for the tensor
contributions induced by helicity, discussing their amplitude and spectral
index in dependence of the power spectrum of the primordial magnetic field. We
find that an helical magnetic field creates a parity odd component of gravity
waves inducing parity odd polarization signals. However, only if the magnetic
field is close to scale invariant and if its helical part is close to maximal,
the effect is sufficiently large to be observable. We also discuss the
implications of causality on the magnetic field spectrum.Comment: We have corrected a normalisation error which was pointed out to us
by Antony Lewis. It enhances our limits on the magnetic fields by
(2\pi)^{3/4} ~
Dynamical Casimir effect for gravitons in bouncing braneworlds
We consider a two-brane system in a five-dimensional anti-de Sitter
spacetime. We study particle creation due to the motion of the physical brane
which first approaches the second static brane (contraction) and then recedes
from it(expansion). The spectrum and the energy density of the generated
gravitons are calculated. We show that the massless gravitons have a blue
spectrum and that their energy density satisfies the nucleosynthesis bound with
very mild constraints on the parameters. We also show that the Kaluza-Klein
modes cannot provide the dark matter in an anti-de-Sitter braneworld. However,
for natural choices of parameters, backreaction from the Kaluza-Klein gravitons
may well become important. The main findings of this work have been published
in the form of a Letter [R. Durrer and M. Ruser, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 071601
(2007), arXiv:0704.0756].Comment: 40 pages, 34 figures, improved and extended version, matches
published versio
CMB anisotropies from acausal scaling seeds
We investigate models where structure formation is initiated by scaling
seeds: We consider rapidly expanding relativistic shells of energy and show
that they can fit current CMB and large scale structure data if they expand
with super-luminal velocities. These acausally expanding shells provide a
viable alternative to inflation for cosmological structure formation with the
same minimal number of parameters to characterize the initial fluctuations.
Causally expanding shells alone cannot fit present data. Hybrid models where
causal shells and inflation are mixed also provide good fits.Comment: 9 pages,13 figures, revised version accepted for publication in PR
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