449 research outputs found
Spin rotation for ballistic electron transmission induced by spin-orbit interaction
We study spin dependent electron transmission through one- and
two-dimensional curved waveguides and quantum dots with account of spin-orbit
interaction. We prove that for a transmission through arbitrary structure there
is no spin polarization provided that electron transmits in isolated energy
subband and only two leads are attached to the structure. In particular there
is no spin polarization in the one-dimensional wire for which spin dependent
solution is found analytically. The solution demonstrates spin evolution as
dependent on a length of wire. Numerical solution for transmission of electrons
through the two-dimensional curved waveguides coincides with the solution for
the one-dimensional wire if the energy of electron is within the first energy
subband. In the vicinity of edges of the energy subbands there are sharp
anomalies of spin flipping.Comment: 9 oages, 7 figure
Probing neutrino masses with future galaxy redshift surveys
We perform a new study of future sensitivities of galaxy redshift surveys to
the free-streaming effect caused by neutrino masses, adding the information on
cosmological parameters from measurements of primary anisotropies of the cosmic
microwave background (CMB). Our reference cosmological scenario has nine
parameters and three different neutrino masses, with a hierarchy imposed by
oscillation experiments. Within the present decade, the combination of the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and CMB data from the PLANCK experiment will
have a 2-sigma detection threshold on the total neutrino mass close to 0.2 eV.
This estimate is robust against the inclusion of extra free parameters in the
reference cosmological model. On a longer term, the next generation of
experiments may reach values of order sum m_nu = 0.1 eV at 2-sigma, or better
if a galaxy redshift survey significantly larger than SDSS is completed. We
also discuss how the small changes on the free-streaming scales in the normal
and inverted hierarchy schemes are translated into the expected errors from
future cosmological data.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Added results with the KAOS proposal and 1
referenc
Current cosmological bounds on neutrino masses and relativistic relics
We combine the most recent observations of large-scale structure (2dF and
SDSS galaxy surveys) and cosmic microwave anisotropies (WMAP and ACBAR) to put
constraints on flat cosmological models where the number of massive neutrinos
and of massless relativistic relics are both left arbitrary. We discuss the
impact of each dataset and of various priors on our bounds. For the standard
case of three thermalized neutrinos, we find an upper bound on the total
neutrino mass sum m_nu < 1.0 (resp. 0.6) eV (at 2sigma), using only CMB and LSS
data (resp. including priors from supernovae data and the HST Key Project), a
bound that is quite insensitive to the splitting of the total mass between the
three species. When the total number of neutrinos or relativistic relics N_eff
is left free, the upper bound on sum m_nu (at 2sigma, including all priors)
ranges from 1.0 to 1.5 eV depending on the mass splitting. We provide an
explanation of the parameter degeneracy that allows larger values of the masses
when N_eff increases. Finally, we show that the limit on the total neutrino
mass is not significantly modified in the presence of primordial gravitational
waves, because current data provide a clear distinction between the
corresponding effects.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Signatures of Relativistic Neutrinos in CMB Anisotropy and Matter Clustering
We present a detailed analytical study of ultra-relativistic neutrinos in
cosmological perturbation theory and of the observable signatures of
inhomogeneities in the cosmic neutrino background. We note that a modification
of perturbation variables that removes all the time derivatives of scalar
gravitational potentials from the dynamical equations simplifies their solution
notably. The used perturbations of particle number per coordinate, not proper,
volume are generally constant on superhorizon scales. In real space an
analytical analysis can be extended beyond fluids to neutrinos.
The faster cosmological expansion due to the neutrino background changes the
acoustic and damping angular scales of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
But we find that equivalent changes can be produced by varying other standard
parameters, including the primordial helium abundance. The low-l integrated
Sachs-Wolfe effect is also not sensitive to neutrinos. However, the gravity of
neutrino perturbations suppresses the CMB acoustic peaks for the multipoles
with l>~200 while it enhances the amplitude of matter fluctuations on these
scales. In addition, the perturbations of relativistic neutrinos generate a
*unique phase shift* of the CMB acoustic oscillations that for adiabatic
initial conditions cannot be caused by any other standard physics. The origin
of the shift is traced to neutrino free-streaming velocity exceeding the sound
speed of the photon-baryon plasma. We find that from a high resolution, low
noise instrument such as CMBPOL the effective number of light neutrino species
can be determined with an accuracy of sigma(N_nu) = 0.05 to 0.09, depending on
the constraints on the helium abundance.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in PR
Cosmological Implications of Neutrinos
The lectures describe several cosmological effects produced by neutrinos.
Upper and lower cosmological limits on neutrino mass are derived. The role that
neutrinos may play in formation of large scale structure of the universe is
described and neutrino mass limits are presented. Effects of neutrinos on
cosmological background radiation and on big bang nucleosynthesis are
discussed. Limits on the number of neutrino flavors and mass/mixing are given.Comment: 41 page, 7 figures; lectures presented at ITEP Winter School,
February, 2002; to be published in the Proceeding
Measuring neutrino masses with a future galaxy survey
We perform a detailed forecast on how well a Euclid-like photometric galaxy
and cosmic shear survey will be able to constrain the absolute neutrino mass
scale. Adopting conservative assumptions about the survey specifications and
assuming complete ignorance of the galaxy bias, we estimate that the minimum
mass sum of sum m_nu ~ 0.06 eV in the normal hierarchy can be detected at 1.5
sigma to 2.5 sigma significance, depending on the model complexity, using a
combination of galaxy and cosmic shear power spectrum measurements in
conjunction with CMB temperature and polarisation observations from Planck.
With better knowledge of the galaxy bias, the significance of the detection
could potentially reach 5.4 sigma. Interestingly, neither Planck+shear nor
Planck+galaxy alone can achieve this level of sensitivity; it is the combined
effect of galaxy and cosmic shear power spectrum measurements that breaks the
persistent degeneracies between the neutrino mass, the physical matter density,
and the Hubble parameter. Notwithstanding this remarkable sensitivity to sum
m_nu, Euclid-like shear and galaxy data will not be sensitive to the exact mass
spectrum of the neutrino sector; no significant bias (< 1 sigma) in the
parameter estimation is induced by fitting inaccurate models of the neutrino
mass splittings to the mock data, nor does the goodness-of-fit of these models
suffer any significant degradation relative to the true one (Delta chi_eff ^2<
1).Comment: v1: 29 pages, 10 figures. v2: 33 pages, 12 figures; added sections on
shape evolution and constraints in more complex models, accepted for
publication in JCA
Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum
P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in
combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a
``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt,
tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the
WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the
Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter
density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on
neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when
dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the
equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint
analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive
consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis
techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the
physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using
different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the
assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the
measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to
t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running
tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many
constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from
SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt
figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm
Relic Neutrino Absorption Spectroscopy
Resonant annihilation of extremely high-energy cosmic neutrinos on big-bang
relic anti-neutrinos (and vice versa) into Z-bosons leads to sizable absorption
dips in the neutrino flux to be observed at Earth. The high-energy edges of
these dips are fixed, via the resonance energies, by the neutrino masses alone.
Their depths are determined by the cosmic neutrino background density, by the
cosmological parameters determining the expansion rate of the universe, and by
the large redshift history of the cosmic neutrino sources. We investigate the
possibility of determining the existence of the cosmic neutrino background
within the next decade from a measurement of these absorption dips in the
neutrino flux. As a by-product, we study the prospects to infer the absolute
neutrino mass scale. We find that, with the presently planned neutrino
detectors (ANITA, Auger, EUSO, OWL, RICE, and SalSA) operating in the relevant
energy regime above 10^{21} eV, relic neutrino absorption spectroscopy becomes
a realistic possibility. It requires, however, the existence of extremely
powerful neutrino sources, which should be opaque to nucleons and high-energy
photons to evade present constraints. Furthermore, the neutrino mass spectrum
must be quasi-degenerate to optimize the dip, which implies m_{nu} >~ 0.1 eV
for the lightest neutrino. With a second generation of neutrino detectors,
these demanding requirements can be relaxed considerably.Comment: 19 pages, 26 figures, REVTeX
f(R,L_m) gravity
We generalize the type gravity models by assuming that the
gravitational Lagrangian is given by an arbitrary function of the Ricci scalar
and of the matter Lagrangian . We obtain the gravitational field
equations in the metric formalism, as well as the equations of motion for test
particles, which follow from the covariant divergence of the energy-momentum
tensor. The equations of motion for test particles can also be derived from a
variational principle in the particular case in which the Lagrangian density of
the matter is an arbitrary function of the energy-density of the matter only.
Generally, the motion is non-geodesic, and takes place in the presence of an
extra force orthogonal to the four-velocity. The Newtonian limit of the
equation of motion is also considered, and a procedure for obtaining the
energy-momentum tensor of the matter is presented. The gravitational field
equations and the equations of motion for a particular model in which the
action of the gravitational field has an exponential dependence on the standard
general relativistic Hilbert--Einstein Lagrange density are also derived.Comment: 6 pages, no figures; minor modifications, references added; accepted
for publication in EPJ
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