14 research outputs found
The Holographic Dark Energy in a Non-flat Universe
We study the model for holographic dark energy in a spatially closed
universe, generalizing the proposal in hep-th/0403127 for a flat universe. We
provide independent arguments for the choice of the parameter in the
holographic dark energy model. On the one hand, can not be less than 1, to
avoid violating the second law of thermodynamics. On the other hand,
observation suggests be very close to 1, it is hard to justify a small
deviation of from 1, if .Comment: 12 pages, harvmac, v2: order of authors is corrected in webpage, v3:
refs. adde
Could dark energy be vector-like?
In this paper I explore whether a vector field can be the origin of the
present stage of cosmic acceleration. In order to avoid violations of isotropy,
the vector has be part of a ``cosmic triad'', that is, a set of three identical
vectors pointing in mutually orthogonal spatial directions. A triad is indeed
able to drive a stage of late accelerated expansion in the universe, and there
exist tracking attractors that render cosmic evolution insensitive to initial
conditions. However, as in most other models, the onset of cosmic acceleration
is determined by a parameter that has to be tuned to reproduce current
observations. The triad equation of state can be sufficiently close to minus
one today, and for tachyonic models it might be even less than that. I briefly
analyze linear cosmological perturbation theory in the presence of a triad. It
turns out that the existence of non-vanishing spatial vectors invalidates the
decomposition theorem, i.e. scalar, vector and tensor perturbations do not
decouple from each other. In a simplified case it is possible to analytically
study the stability of the triad along the different cosmological attractors.
The triad is classically stable during inflation, radiation and matter
domination, but it is unstable during (late-time) cosmic acceleration. I argue
that this instability is not likely to have a significant impact at present.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures. Uses RevTeX4. v2: Discussion about relation to
phantoms added and additional references cite
Dilatonic ghost condensate as dark energy
We explore a dark energy model with a ghost scalar field in the context of
the runaway dilaton scenario in low-energy effective string theory. We address
the problem of vacuum stability by implementing higher-order derivative terms
and show that a cosmologically viable model of ``phantomized'' dark energy can
be constructed without violating the stability of quantum fluctuations. We also
analytically derive the condition under which cosmological scaling solutions
exist starting from a general Lagrangian including the phantom type scalar
field. We apply this method to the case where the dilaton is coupled to
non-relativistic dark matter and find that the system tends to become quantum
mechanically unstable when a constant coupling is always present. Nevertheless,
it is possible to obtain a viable cosmological solution in which the energy
density of the dilaton eventually approaches the present value of dark energy
provided that the coupling rapidly grows during the transition to the scalar
field dominated era.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure
Fitting Type Ia supernovae with coupled dark energy
We discuss the possible consistency of the recently discovered Type Ia
supernovae at z>1 with models in which dark energy is strongly coupled to a
significant fraction of dark matter, and in which an (asymptotic) accelerated
phase exists where dark matter and dark energy scale in the same way. Such a
coupling has been suggested for a possible solution of the coincidence problem,
and is also motivated by string cosmology models of "late time" dilaton
interactions. Our analysis shows that, for coupled dark energy models, the
recent data are still consistent with acceleration starting as early as at
(to within 90% c.l.), although at the price of a large "non-universality"
of the dark energy coupling to different matter fields. Also, as opposed to
uncoupled models which seem to prefer a ``phantom'' dark energy, we find that a
large amount of coupled dark matter is compatible with present data only if the
dark energy field has a conventional equation of state w>-1.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Final version, accepted for publication in JCA
Two Loop Scalar Self-Mass during Inflation
We work in the locally de Sitter background of an inflating universe and
consider a massless, minimally coupled scalar with a quartic self-interaction.
We use dimensional regularization to compute the fully renormalized scalar
self-mass-squared at one and two loop order for a state which is released in
Bunch-Davies vacuum at t=0. Although the field strength and coupling constant
renormalizations are identical to those of lfat space, the geometry induces a
non-zero mass renormalization. The finite part also shows a sort of growing
mass that competes with the classical force in eventually turning off this
system's super-acceleration.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, revtex4, revised for publication with extended
list of reference
Cosmological constraints on the dark energy equation of state and its evolution
We have calculated constraints on the evolution of the equation of state of
the dark energy, w(z), from a joint analysis of data from the cosmic microwave
background, large scale structure and type-Ia supernovae. In order to probe the
time-evolution of w we propose a new, simple parametrization of w, which has
the advantage of being transparent and simple to extend to more parameters as
better data becomes available. Furthermore it is well behaved in all asymptotic
limits. Based on this parametrization we find that w(z=0)=-1.43^{+0.16}_{-0.38}
and dw/dz(z=0) = 1.0^{+1.0}_{-0.8}. For a constant w we find that -1.34 < w <
-0.79 at 95% C.L. Thus, allowing for a time-varying w shifts the best fit
present day value of w down. However, even though models with time variation in
w yield a lower chi^2 than pure LambdaCDM models, they do not have a better
goodness-of-fit. Rank correlation tests on SNI-a data also do not show any need
for a time-varying w.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, JCAP format, typos corrected, references
update
Measurement of ZZ production in leptonic final states at {\surd}s of 1.96 TeV at CDF
In this paper we present a precise measurement of the total ZZ production
cross section in pp collisions at {\surd}s= 1.96 TeV, using data collected with
the CDF II detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately
6 fb-1. The result is obtained by combining separate measurements in the
four-charged (lll'l'), and two-charged-lepton and two-neutral-lepton (llvv)
decay modes of the Z. The combined measured cross section for pp {\to} ZZ is
1.64^(+0.44)_(-0.38) pb. This is the most precise measurement of the ZZ
production cross section in 1.96 TeV pp collisions to date.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Let