110 research outputs found
Asymptotic Dynamics of Breathers in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam Chains
We study the asymptotic dynamics of breathers in finite Fermi-Pasta-Ulam
chains at zero and non-zero temperatures. While such breathers are essentially
stationary and very long-lived at zero temperature, thermal fluctuations tend
to lead to breather motion and more rapid decay
Effects of dark sectors' mutual interaction on the growth of structures
We present a general formalism to study the growth of dark matter
perturbations when dark energy perturbations and interactions between dark
sectors are present. We show that dynamical stability of the growth of
structure depends on the type of coupling between dark sectors. By taking the
appropriate coupling to ensure the stable growth of structure, we observe that
the effect of the dark sectors' interaction overwhelms that of dark energy
perturbation on the growth function of dark matter perturbation. Due to the
influence of the interaction, the growth index can differ from the value
without interaction by an amount within the observational sensibility, which
provides a possibility to disclose the interaction between dark sectors through
future observations on the growth of large structure.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, revised version, to appear in JCA
The dS/CFT Correspondence and the Big Smash
Recent observations suggest that the cosmological equation-of-state parameter
w is close to -1. To say this is to imply that w could be slightly less than
-1, which leads to R.Caldwell's "Phantom cosmologies". These often have the
property that they end in a "Big Smash", a final singularity in which the
Universe is destroyed in a finite proper time by excessive *expansion*. We show
that, classically, this fate is not inevitable: there exist Smash-free Phantom
cosmologies, obtained by a suitable perturbation of the deSitter equation of
state, in which the spacetime is in fact asymptotically deSitter. [Contrary to
popular belief, such cosmologies, which violate the Dominant Energy Condition,
do not necessarily violate causality.] We also argue, however, that the
physical interpretation of these classically acceptable spacetimes is radically
altered by ``holography'', as manifested in the dS/CFT correspondence. It is
shown that, if the boundary CFTs have conventional properties, then recent
ideas on "time as an inverse renormalization group flow" can be used to rule
out these cosmologies. Very recently, however, it has been argued that the CFTs
in dS/CFT are of a radically unconventional form, and this opens up the
possibility that Smash-free Phantom spacetimes offer a simple model of a
"bouncing" cosmology in which the quantum-mechanical entanglement of the field
theories in the infinite past and future plays an essential role.Comment: 22 pages, clarification of triple analytic continuation, additional
Comments added in the light of hep-th/020724
Magnetic fields and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in galaxy clusters
In this work we study the contribution of magnetic fields to the Sunyaev
Zeldovich (SZ) effect in the intracluster medium. In particular we calculate
the SZ angular power spectrum and the central temperature decrement. The effect
of magnetic fields is included in the hydrostatic equilibrium equation by
splitting the Lorentz force into two terms one being the force due to magnetic
pressure which acts outwards and the other being magnetic tension which acts
inwards. A perturbative approach is adopted to solve for the gas density
profile for weak magnetic fields (< 4 micro G}). This leads to an enhancement
of the gas density in the central regions for nearly radial magnetic field
configurations. Previous works had considered the force due to magnetic
pressure alone which is the case only for a special set of field
configurations. However, we see that there exists possible sets of
configurations of ICM magnetic fields where the force due to magnetic tension
will dominate. Subsequently, this effect is extrapolated for typical field
strengths (~ 10 micro G) and scaling arguments are used to estimate the angular
power due to secondary anisotropies at cluster scales. In particular we find
that it is possible to explain the excess power reported by CMB experiments
like CBI, BIMA, ACBAR at l > 2000 with sigma_8 ~ 0.8 (WMAP 5 year data) for
typical cluster magnetic fields. In addition we also see that the magnetic
field effect on the SZ temperature decrement is more pronounced for low mass
clusters ( ~ 2 keV). Future SZ detections of low mass clusters at few arc
second resolution will be able to probe this effect more precisely. Thus, it
will be instructive to explore the implications of this model in greater detail
in future works.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure
Transition from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion in braneworld universes
Braneworld theory provides a natural setting to treat, at a classical level,
the cosmological effects of vacuum energy. Non-static extra dimensions can
generally lead to a variable vacuum energy, which in turn may explain the
present accelerated cosmic expansion. We concentrate our attention in models
where the vacuum energy decreases as an inverse power law of the scale factor.
These models agree with the observed accelerating universe, while fitting
simultaneously the observational data for the density and deceleration
parameter. The redshift at which the vacuum energy can start to dominate
depends on the mass density of ordinary matter. For Omega = 0.3, the transition
from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion occurs at z approx 0.48 +/-
0.20, which is compatible with SNe data. We set a lower bound on the
deceleration parameter today, namely q > - 1 + 3 Omega/2, i.e., q > - 0.55 for
Omega = 0.3. The future evolution of the universe crucially depends on the time
when vacuum starts to dominate over ordinary matter. If it dominates only
recently, at an epoch z < 0.64, then the universe is accelerating today and
will continue that way forever. If vacuum dominates earlier, at z > 0.64, then
the deceleration comes back and the universe recollapses at some point in the
distant future. In the first case, quintessence and Cardassian expansion can be
formally interpreted as the low energy limit of our model, although they are
entirely different in philosophy. In the second case there is no correspondence
between these models and ours.Comment: In V2 typos are corrected and one reference is added for section 1.
To appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio
Energy Relaxation in Nonlinear One-Dimensional Lattices
We study energy relaxation in thermalized one-dimensional nonlinear arrays of
the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam type. The ends of the thermalized systems are placed in
contact with a zero-temperature reservoir via damping forces. Harmonic arrays
relax by sequential phonon decay into the cold reservoir, the lower frequency
modes relaxing first. The relaxation pathway for purely anharmonic arrays
involves the degradation of higher-energy nonlinear modes into lower energy
ones. The lowest energy modes are absorbed by the cold reservoir, but a small
amount of energy is persistently left behind in the array in the form of almost
stationary low-frequency localized modes. Arrays with interactions that contain
both a harmonic and an anharmonic contribution exhibit behavior that involves
the interplay of phonon modes and breather modes. At long times relaxation is
extremely slow due to the spontaneous appearance and persistence of energetic
high-frequency stationary breathers. Breather behavior is further ascertained
by explicitly injecting a localized excitation into the thermalized array and
observing the relaxation behavior
Neutrino mass from cosmology: Impact of high-accuracy measurement of the Hubble constant
Non-zero neutrino mass would affect the evolution of the Universe in
observable ways, and a strong constraint on the mass can be achieved using
combinations of cosmological data sets. We focus on the power spectrum of
cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the Hubble constant H_0, and
the length scale for baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) to investigate the
constraint on the neutrino mass, m_nu. We analyze data from multiple existing
CMB studies (WMAP5, ACBAR, CBI, BOOMERANG, and QUAD), recent measurement of H_0
(SHOES), with about two times lower uncertainty (5%) than previous estimates,
and recent treatments of BAO from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We
obtained an upper limit of m_nu < 0.2eV (95% C.L.), for a flat LambdaCDM model.
This is a 40% reduction in the limit derived from previous H_0 estimates and
one-third lower than can be achieved with extant CMB and BAO data. We also
analyze the impact of smaller uncertainty on measurements of H_0 as may be
anticipated in the near term, in combination with CMB data from the Planck
mission, and BAO data from the SDSS/BOSS program. We demonstrate the
possibility of a 5 sigma detection for a fiducial neutrino mass of 0.1eV or a
95% upper limit of 0.04eV for a fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. These constraints are
about 50% better than those achieved without external constraint. We further
investigate the impact on modeling where the dark-energy equation of state is
constant but not necessarily -1, or where a non-flat universe is allowed. In
these cases, the next-generation accuracies of Planck, BOSS, and 1% measurement
of H_0 would all be required to obtain the limit m_nu < 0.05 - 0.06eV (95%
C.L.) for the fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. The independence of systematics argues
for pursuit of both BAO and H_0 measurements.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, 12 table
Newtonian Collapse of Scalar Field Dark Matter
In this letter, we develop a Newtonian approach to the collapse of galaxy
fluctuations of scalar field dark matter under initial conditions inferred from
simple assumptions. The full relativistic system, the so called
Einstein-Klein-Gordon, is reduced to the Schr\"odinger-Newton one in the weak
field limit. The scaling symmetries of the SN equations are exploited to track
the non-linear collapse of single scalar matter fluctuations. The results can
be applied to both real and complex scalar fields.Comment: 4 pages RevTex4 file, 4 eps figure
Probing the primordial power spectra with inflationary priors
We investigate constraints on power spectra of the primordial curvature and
tensor perturbations with priors based on single-field slow-roll inflation
models. We stochastically draw the Hubble slow-roll parameters and generate the
primordial power spectra using the inflationary flow equations. Using data from
recent observations of CMB and several measurements of geometrical distances in
the late Universe, Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection are
performed for models that have separate priors on the slow-roll parameters. The
same analysis is also performed adopting the standard parameterization of the
primordial power spectra. We confirmed that the scale-invariant
Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is disfavored with increased significance from
previous studies. While current observations appear to be optimally modeled
with some simple models of single-field slow-roll inflation, data is not enough
constraining to distinguish these models.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in JCA
Inflationary Theory and Alternative Cosmology
Recently Hollands and Wald argued that inflation does not solve any of the
major cosmological problems. We explain why we disagree with their arguments.
They also proposed a new speculative mechanism of generation of density
perturbations. We show that in their scenario the inhomogeneities responsible
for the large scale structure observed today were generated at an epoch when
the energy density of the hot universe was 10^{95} times greater than the
Planck density. The only way to avoid this problem is to assume that there was
a stage of inflation in the early universe.Comment: 17 pages, 1 fig, a discussion of a canonical measure of probability
of inflation is adde
- …