Solving Cosmological Problems of Supersymmetric Axion Models in an Inflationary Universe

We revisit inflationary cosmology of axion models in the light of recent developments on the inflaton decay in supergravity. We find that all the cosmological difficulties, including gravitino, axino overproduction and axionic isocurvature fluctuation, can be avoided if the saxion field has large initial amplitude during inflation and decays before big-bang nucleosynthesis.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Updated constraint on a primordial magnetic field during big bang nucleosynthesis and a formulation of field effects

A new upper limit on the amplitude of primordial magnetic field (PMF) is derived by a comparison between a calculation of elemental abundances in big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) model and the latest observational constraints on the abundances. Updated nuclear reaction rates are adopted in the calculation. Effects of PMF on the abundances are consistently taken into account in the numerical calculation with the precise formulation of changes in physical variables. We find that abundances of 3He and 6Li increase while that of 7Li decreases when the PMF amplitude increases, in the case of the baryon-to-photon ratio determined from the measurement of cosmic microwave background radiation. We derive a constraint on the present amplitude of PMF, i.e., B(0)<1.5 micro G [corresponding to the amplitude less than 2.0x10^{11} G at BBN temperature of T=10^9 K] based on the rigorous calculation.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, new observation of D/H ratio adopted, tighter constraint derived, Sec. IV modified, accepted for publication in PR

General treatment of isocurvature perturbations and non-Gaussianities

We present a general formalism that provides a systematic computation of the linear and non-linear perturbations for an arbitrary number of cosmological fluids in the early Universe going through various transitions, in particular the decay of some species (such as a curvaton or a modulus). Using this formalism, we revisit the question of isocurvature non-Gaussianities in the mixed inflaton-curvaton scenario and show that one can obtain significant non-Gaussianities dominated by the isocurvature mode while satisfying the present constraints on the isocurvature contribution in the observed power spectrum. We also study two-curvaton scenarios, taking into account the production of dark matter, and investigate in which cases significant non-Gaussianities can be produced.Comment: Substantial improvements with respect to the first version. In particular, we added a discussion on the confrontation of the models with future observational data. This version is accepted for publication in JCA

Cosmological Constraints on Late-time Entropy Production

We investigate cosmological effects concerning the late-time entropy production due to the decay of non-relativistic massive particles. The thermalization process of neutrinos after the entropy production is properly solved by using the Boltzmann equation. If a large entropy production takes place at late time t$\simeq$ 1 sec, it is found that a large fraction of neutrinos cannot be thermalized. This fact loosens the tight constraint on the reheating temperature T_R from the big bang nucleosynthesis and T_R could be as low as 0.5 MeV. The influence on the large scale structure formation and cosmic microwave background anisotropies is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, using RevTeX and five postscript figures, comments added, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Spectrum of Background X-rays from Moduli Dark Matter

We examine the $X$-ray spectrum from the decay of the dark-matter moduli with mass $\sim {\cal O}(100)$keV, in particular, paying attention to the line spectrum from the moduli trapped in the halo of our galaxy. It is found that with the energy resolution of the current experiments ($\sim 10$%) the line intensity is about twice stronger than that of the continuum spectrum from the moduli that spread in the whole universe. Therefore, in the future experiments with higher energy resolutions it may be possible to detect such line photons. We also investigate the $\gamma$-ray spectrum emitted from the decay of the multi-GeV moduli. It is shown that the emitted photons may form MeV-bump in the $\gamma$-ray spectrum. We also find that if the modulus mass is of the order of 10 GeV, the emitted photons at the peak of the continuum spectrum loses their energy by the scattering and the shape of the spectrum is significantly changed, which makes the constraint weaker than that obtained in the previous works.Comment: 14 pages (RevTeX file) including four postscript figures, reviced version to be published in Physical Review

Reheat temperature in supersymmetric hybrid inflation models

The allowed range of parameters for supersymmetric hybrid inflation and its extensions are investigated. The lower bound on the reheat temperature T_r in these models with hierarchical right handed neutrinos is found to be 3*10^7 GeV. (T_r as low as 100 GeV is possible for quasi degenerate right handed neutrinos.) We also present revised estimates for the scalar spectral index and the symmetry breaking scale associated with inflation.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, revtex4. v2: minor changes, matches published versio

Isocurvature perturbations in extra radiation

Recent cosmological observations, including measurements of the CMB anisotropy and the primordial helium abundance, indicate the existence of an extra radiation component in the Universe beyond the standard three neutrino species. In this paper we explore the possibility that the extra radiation has isocurvatrue fluctuations. A general formalism to evaluate isocurvature perturbations in the extra radiation is provided in the mixed inflaton-curvaton system, where the extra radiation is produced by the decay of both scalar fields. We also derive constraints on the abundance of the extra radiation and the amount of its isocurvature perturbation. Current observational data favors the existence of an extra radiation component, but does not indicate its having isocurvature perturbation. These constraints are applied to some particle physics motivated models. If future observations detect isocurvature perturbations in the extra radiation, it will give us a hint to the origin of the extra radiation.Comment: 41 pages, 8 figures; version accepted for publication in JCA

Reheating of the Universe and Population III

We note that current observational evidence strongly favors a conventional recombination of ionized matter subsequent to redshift z=1200, followed by reionization prior to redshift z=5 and compute how this would have occurred in a standard scenario for the growth of structure. Extending prior semi-analytic work, we show by direct, high-resolution numerical simulations (of a COBE normalized CDM+Lambda model) that reheating, will occur in the interval 15>z>7, followed by reionization and accompanied by a significant increase in the Jeans mass. However, the evolution of the Jeans mass does not significantly affect star formation in dense, self-shielded clumps of gas, which are detached from the thermal evolution of the rest of the universe. On average, the growth of the Jeans mass tracks the growth of the nonlinear mass scale, a result we suspect is due to nonlinear feedback effects. Cooling on molecular hydrogen leads to a burst of star formation prior to reheating which produces Population III stars with Omega_* reaching 10^{-5.5} and Z/Z_sun reaching 10^{-3.7} by z=14. Star formation subsequently slows down as molecular hydrogen is depleted by photo-destruction and the rise of the temperature. At later times, z<10, when the characteristic virial temperature of gas clumps reach 10,000 degrees, star formation increases again as hydrogen line cooling become efficient. Objects containing Pop III stars accrete mass with time and, as soon as they reach 10,000 K virial temperature, they engage in renewed star formation and turn into normal Pop II objects having an old Pop III metal poor component.Comment: six postscript figures included, submitted to ApJ

Hunting for Isocurvature Modes in the CMB non-Gaussianities

We investigate new shapes of local primordial non-Gaussianities in the CMB. Allowing for a primordial isocurvature mode along with the main adiabatic one, the angular bispectrum is in general a superposition of six distinct shapes: the usual adiabatic term, a purely isocurvature component and four additional components that arise from correlations between the adiabatic and isocurvature modes. We present a class of early Universe models in which various hierarchies between these six components can be obtained, while satisfying the present upper bound on the isocurvature fraction in the power spectrum. Remarkably, even with this constraint, detectable non-Gaussianity could be produced by isocurvature modes. We finally discuss the prospects of detecting these new shapes with the Planck satellite.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure