1,299 research outputs found
Curvatons in the minimally supersymmetric standard model
Curvaton is an effectively massless field whose energy density during
inflation is negligible but which later becomes dominant. This is a novel
mechanism to generate the scale invariant perturbations. I discuss the
possibility that the curvaton could be found among the fields of the minimally
supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), which contains a number of flat
directions along which the renormalizable potential vanishes. The requirements
of late domination and the absence of damping of the perturbations pick out
essentially a unique candidate for the MSSM curvaton. One must also require
that inflation takes place in a hidden sector. If the inflaton energy density
can be radiated into extra dimensions, many constraints can be relaxed, and the
simplest flat direction consisting of the Higgses H_u and H_d would provide a
working example of an MSSM curvaton.Comment: 16 pages, 1 Figur
A model for fluctuating inflaton coupling: (s)neutrino induced adiabatic perturbations and non-thermal leptogenesis
We discuss an unique possibility of generating adiabatic density
perturbations and leptogenesis from the spatial fluctuations of the inflaton
decay rate. The key assumption is that the initial isocurvature perturbations
are created in the right handed sneutrino sector during inflation which is then
converted into adiabatic perturbations when the inflaton decays. We discuss
distinct imprints on the cosmic micro wave background radiation, which can
distinguish non-thermal versus thermal leptogenesis.Comment: 4 pages, version to be published in PR
Numerical simulations of fragmentation of the Affleck-Dine condensate
We present numerical simulations of fragmentation of the Affleck-Dine
condensate in two spatial dimensions. We argue analytically that the final
state should consist of both Q-balls and anti-Q-balls in a state of maximum
entropy, with most of the balls small and relativistic. Such a behaviour is
found in simulations on a 100x100 lattice with cosmologically realistic
parameter values. During fragmentation process, we observe filament-like
texture in the spatial distribution of charge. The total charge in Q-balls is
found to be almost equal to the charge in anti-Q-balls and typically orders of
magnitude larger than charge asymmetry. Analytical considerations indicate
that, apart from geometrical factors, the results of the simulated two
dimensional case should apply also to the fully realistic three dimensional
case.Comment: 28 pages, 39 figure
Q-ball Formation through Affleck-Dine Mechanism
We present the full nonlinear calculation of the formation of a Q-ball
through the Affleck-Dine (AD) mechanism by numerical simulations. It is shown
that large Q-balls are actually produced by the fragmentation of the condensate
of a scalar field whose potential is very flat. We find that the typical size
of a Q-ball is determined by the most developed mode of linearized
fluctuations, and almost all the initial charges which the AD condensate
carries are absorbed into the formed Q-balls, whose sizes and the charges
depend only on the initial charge densities.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 3 postscript figures included, the published versio
Seed perturbations for primordial magnetic fields from MSSM flat directions
We demonstrate that the MSSM flat directions can naturally account for the
seed magnetic fields in the early Universe. The non-zero vacuum expectation
value of an MSSM flat direction condensate provides masses to the gauge fields
and thereby breaks conformal invariance. During inflation the condensate
receives spatial perturbations and gauge currents are
generated together with (hyper)magnetic fields. When these long wavelength
vector perturbations reenter our horizon they give rise to magnetic
fields with an amplitude of Gauss, as required by the dynamo
mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX
Q-ball formation in the gravity-mediated SUSY breaking scenario
We study the formation of Q-balls which are made of flat directions that
appear in the supersymmetric extension of the standard model in the context of
gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking. The full non-linear calculations for
the dynamics of the complex scalar field are made. Since the scalar potential
in this model is flatter than \phi^2, we have found that fluctuations develop
and go non-linear to form non-topological solitons, Q-balls. The size of a
Q-ball is determined by the most amplified mode, which is completely determined
by the model parameters. On the other hand, the charge of Q-balls depends
linearly on the initial charge density of the Affleck-Dine (AD) field. Almost
all the charges are absorbed into Q-balls, and only a tiny fraction of the
charges is carried by a relic AD field. It may lead to some constraints on the
baryogenesis and/or parameters in the particle theory. The peculiarity of
gravity-mediation is the moving Q-balls. This results in collisions between
Q-balls. It may increase the charge of Q-balls, and change its fate.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex, 11 postscript figures included, to appear in Phys.
Rev.
Testing for Features in the Primordial Power Spectrum
Well-known causality arguments show that events occurring during or at the
end of inflation, associated with reheating or preheating, could contribute a
blue component to the spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, with the
dependence k^3. We explore the possibility that they could be observably large
in CMB, LSS, and Lyman-alpha data. We find that a k^3 component with a cutoff
at some maximum k can modestly improve the fits (Delta chi^2=2.0, 5.4) of the
low multipoles (l ~ 10 - 50) or the second peak (l ~ 540) of the CMB angular
spectrum when the three-year WMAP data are used. Moreover, the results from
WMAP are consistent with the CBI, ACBAR, 2dFGRS, and SDSS data when they are
included in the analysis. Including the SDSS galaxy clustering power spectrum,
we find weak positive evidence for the k^3 component at the level of Delta chi'
= 2.4, with the caveat that the nonlinear evolution of the power spectrum may
not be properly treated in the presence of the k^3 distortion. To investigate
the high-k regime, we use the Lyman-alpha forest data (LUQAS, Croft et al., and
SDSS Lyman-alpha); here we find evidence at the level Delta chi^2' = 3.8.
Considering that there are two additional free parameters in the model, the
above results do not give a strong evidence for features; however, they show
that surprisingly large bumps are not ruled out. We give constraints on the
ratio between the k^3 component and the nearly scale-invariant component, r_3 <
1.5, over the range of wave numbers 0.0023/Mpc < k < 8.2/Mpc. We also discuss
theoretical models which could lead to the k^3 effect, including ordinary
hybrid inflation and double D-term inflation models. We show that the
well-motivated k^3 component is also a good representative of the generic
spikelike feature in the primordial perturbation power spectrum.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures; added new section on theoretical motivation for
k^3 term, and discussion of double D-term hybrid inflation models; title
changed, added a new section discussing the generic spikelike features,
published in IJMP
Scale-dependence of Non-Gaussianity in the Curvaton Model
We investigate the scale-dependence of f_NL in the self-interacting curvaton
model. We show that the scale-dependence, encoded in the spectral index
n_{f_NL}, can be observable by future cosmic microwave background observations,
such as CMBpol, in a significant part of the parameter space of the model. We
point out that together with information about the trispectrum g_NL, the
self-interacting curvaton model parameters could be completely fixed by
observations. We also discuss the scale-dependence of g_NL and its implications
for the curvaton model, arguing that it could provide a complementary probe in
cases where the theoretical value of n_{f_NL} is below observational
sensitivity.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, Eq.(10) correcte
Q-ball formation: Obstacle to Affleck-Dine baryogenesis in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking ?
We consider the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis comprehensively in the minimal
supersymmetric standard model with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking.
Considering the high temperature effects, we see that the Affleck-Dine field is
naturally deformed into the form of the Q ball. In the natural scenario where
the initial amplitude of the field and the A-terms are both determined by the
nonrenormalizable superpotential, we obtain only very a narrow allowed region
in the parameter space in order to explain the baryon number of the universe
for the case that the Q-ball formation occurs just after baryon number
production. Moreover, most of the parameter sets suited have already been
excluded by current experiments. We also find new situations in which the
Q-ball formation takes place rather late compared with baryon number creation.
This situation is more preferable, since it allows a wider parameter region for
naturally consistent scenarios, although it is still difficult to realize in
the actual cosmological scenario.Comment: 27 pages, RevTeX, 21 postscript figures included. The version to be
publishe
Effect of Background Evolution on the Curvaton Non-Gaussianity
We investigate how the background evolution affects the curvature
perturbations generated by the curvaton, assuming a curvaton potential that may
deviate slightly from the quadratic one, and parameterizing the background
fluid density as \rho\propto a^{-\alpha}, where a is the scale factor, and
\alpha depends on the background fluid. It turns out that the more there is
deviation from the quadratic case, the more pronounced is the dependence of the
curvature perturbation on \alpha. We also show that the background can have a
significant effect on the nonlinearity parameters f_NL and g_NL. As an example,
if at the onset of the curvaton oscillation there is a dimension 6 contribution
to the potential at 5 % level and the energy fraction of the curvaton to the
total one at the time of its decay is at 1 %, we find variations \Delta f_NL
\sim \mathcal{O}(10) and \Delta g_NL \sim \mathcal{O}(10^4) between matter and
radiation dominated backgrounds. Moreover, we demonstrate that there is a
relation between f_NL and g_NL that can be used to probe the form of the
curvaton potential and the equation of state of the background fluid.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
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