Towards inflation and dark energy cosmologies from modified Gauss-Bonnet theory

We consider a physically viable cosmological model that has a field dependent Gauss-Bonnet coupling in its effective action, in addition to a standard scalar field potential. The presence of such terms in the four dimensional effective action gives rise to several novel effects, such as a four dimensional flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe undergoing a cosmic inflation at early epoch, as well as a cosmic acceleration at late times. The model predicts, during inflation, spectra of both density perturbations and gravitational waves that may fall well within the experimental bounds. Furthermore, this model provides a mechanism for reheating of the early universe, which is similar to a model with some friction terms added to the equation of motion of the scalar field, which can imitate energy transfer from the scalar field to matterComment: 35 pages, 21 eps figs; section 6 expanded improving explanations, refs added, final in JCA

Dark energy from scalar field with Gauss Bonnet and non-minimal kinetic coupling

We study a model of scalar field with a general non-minimal kinetic coupling to itself and to the curvature, and additional coupling to the Gauss Bonnet 4-dimensional invariant. The model presents rich cosmological dynamics and some of its solutions are analyzed. A variety of scalar fields and potentials giving rise to power-law expansion have been found. The dynamical equation of state is studied for two cases, with and without free kinetic term . In both cases phenomenologically acceptable solutions have been found. Some solutions describe essentially dark energy behavior, and and some solutions contain the decelerated and accelerated phases.Comment: 21 page

Late-time Cosmic Dynamics from M-theory

We consider the behaviour of the cosmological acceleration for time-dependent hyperbolic and flux compactifications of M-theory, with an exponential potential. For flat and closed cosmologies it is seen that a positive acceleration is always transient for both compactifications. For open cosmologies, both compactifications can give at late times periods of positive acceleration. As a function of proper time this acceleration has a power law decay and can be either positive, negative or oscillatory.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure

On compatibility of string effective action with an accelerating universe

In this paper, we fully investigate the cosmological effects of the moduli dependent one-loop corrections to the gravitational couplings of the string effective action to explain the cosmic acceleration problem in early (and/or late) universe. These corrections comprise a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) invariant multiplied by universal non-trivial functions of the common modulus $\sigma$ and the dilaton $\phi$. The model exhibits several features of cosmological interest, including the transition between deceleration and acceleration phases. By considering some phenomenologically motivated ansatzs for one of the scalars and/or the scale factor (of the universe), we also construct a number of interesting inflationary potentials. In all examples under consideration, we find that the model leads only to a standard inflation ($w \geq -1$) when the numerical coefficient $\delta$ associated with modulus-GB coupling is positive, while the model can lead also to a non-standard inflation ($w<-1$), if $\delta$ is negative. In the absence of (or trivial) coupling between the GB term and the scalars, there is no crossing between the $w -1$ phases, while this is possible with non-trivial GB couplings, even for constant dilaton phase of the standard picture. Within our model, after a sufficient amount of e-folds of expansion, the rolling of both fields $\phi$ and $\sigma$ can be small. In turn, any possible violation of equivalence principle or deviations from the standard general relativity may be small enough to easily satisfy all astrophysical and cosmological constraints.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures; v2 significant changes in notations, appendix and refs added; v3 significant revisions, refs added; v4 appendix extended, new refs, published versio

Doping Dependence of Polaron Hopping Energies in La(1-x)Ca(x)MnO(3) (0<= x<= 0.15)

Measurements of the low-frequency (f<= 100 kHz) permittivity at T<= 160 K and dc resistivity (T<= 430 K) are reported for La(1-x)Ca(x)MnO(3) (0<= x<= 0.15). Static dielectric constants are determined from the low-T limiting behavior of the permittivity. The estimated polarizability for bound holes ~ 10^{-22} cm^{-3} implies a radius comparable to the interatomic spacing, consistent with the small polaron picture established from prior transport studies near room temperature and above on nearby compositions. Relaxation peaks in the dielectric loss associated with charge-carrier hopping yield activation energies in good agreement with low-T hopping energies determined from variable-range hopping fits of the dc resistivity. The doping dependence of these energies suggests that the orthorhombic, canted antiferromagnetic ground state tends toward an insulator-metal transition that is not realized due to the formation of the ferromagnetic insulating state near Mn(4+) concentration ~ 0.13.Comment: PRB in press, 5 pages, 6 figure

Village Baseline Study: Site Analysis Report for Rupandehi, Madhuri Village, Nepal

This is the report of the village baseline study of Madhuri Village in the CCAFS benchmark site of Rupandehi, Nepal conducted from June 5-9, 2011 to complement an earlier household baseline survey done in the same village. Madhuri is located in the fertile area of the Indo-Gangetic Plain in Nepal yet faces challenges due to increasing populations, encroachment on forests, decreasing soil fertility, limited agriculture and animal productivity, lack of opportunities, and variable climatic conditions. Its circumstances present manageable opportunities to prevent an increase in food insecurity and further degradation natural resources. Madhuri has yet to incur any food or environmental crises

A Note on Acceleration from Product Space Compactification

We study compactifications of Einstein gravity on product spaces in vacuum and their acceleration phases. Scalar potentials for the dimensionally reduced effective theory are found to be of exponential form and exact solutions are obtained for a class of product spaces. The inflation in our solutions is not sufficient for the early universe. We comment on the possibility of obtaining sufficient inflation by compactification in general.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, v2: further comments and references added, v3: typos fixe

Simple cosmological de Sitter solutions on dS4×Y6_4 \times Y_6 spaces

Explicit time-dependent solutions of the 10D vacuum Einstein equations are found for which spacetime is compactified on six-dimensional warped spaces. We explicitly work out an example where the internal manifold is a six-dimensional generalized space having positive, negative or zero scalar curvature, whose base can be a five-sphere $S^5$ or an Einstein space $T^{1,1}=(S^2\times S^2)\rtimes S^1$. In this paper, inflationary de Sitter solutions are found just by solving the 10D vacuum Einstein equations. Our results further show that the limitation with warped models studied to date has arisen partly from an oversimplification of the 10D metric ansatz. We also give some explicit examples of a non-singular warped compactification on de Sitter space dS$_4$.Comment: 15 pages, no figures; matches published versio