Inertial-Hall effect: the influence of rotation on the Hall conductivity

Inertial effects play an important role in classical mechanics but have been largely overlooked in quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, the analogy between inertial forces on mass particles and electromagnetic forces on charged particles is not new. In this paper, we consider a rotating non-interacting planar two-dimensional electron gas with a perpendicular uniform magnetic field and investigate the effects of the rotation in the Hall conductiv

Cosmic voids in modified gravity scenarios

Modified gravity (MG) theories aim to reproduce the observed acceleration of the Universe by reducing the dark sector while simultaneously recovering General Relativity (GR) within dense environments. Void studies appear to be a suitable scenario to search for imprints of alternative gravity models on cosmological scales. Voids cover an interesting range of density scales where screening mechanisms fade out, which reaches from a density contrast $\delta \approx -1$ close to their centers to $\delta \approx 0$ close to their boundaries. We present an analysis of the level of distinction between GR and two modified gravity theories, the Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ and the symmetron theory. This study relies on the abundance, linear bias, and density profile of voids detected in n-body cosmological simulations. We define voids as connected regions made up of the union of spheres with a {\it \textup{mean}} density given by $\overline\rho_v=0.2\,\overline\rho_m$, but disconnected from any other voids. We find that the height of void walls is considerably affected by the gravitational theory, such that it increases for stronger gravity modifications. Finally, we show that at the level of dark matter n-body simulations, our constraints allow us to distinguish between GR and MG models with $|f_{R0}| > 10^{-6}$ and $z_{SSB} > 1$. Differences of best-fit values for MG parameters that are derived independently from multiple void probes may indicate an incorrect MG model. This serves as an important consistency check.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure

On the equivalence of Lambda(t) and gravitationally induced particle production cosmologies

The correspondence between cosmological models powered by a decaying vacuum energy density and gravitationally induced particle production is investigated. Although being physically different in the physics behind them we show that both classes of cosmologies under certain conditions can exhibit the same dynamic and thermodynamic behavior. Our method is applied to obtain three specific models that may be described either as Lambda(t)CDM or gravitationally induced particle creation cosmologies. In the point of view of particle production models, the later class of cosmologies can be interpreted as a kind of one-component unification of the dark sector. By using current type Ia supernovae data, recent estimates of the cosmic microwave background shift parameter and baryon acoustic oscillations measurements we also perform a statistical analysis to test the observational viability within the two equivalent classes of models and we obtain the best-fit of the free parameters. By adopting the Akaike information criterion we also determine the rank of the models considered here. Finally, the particle production cosmologies (and the associated decaying Lambda(t)-models) are modeled in the framework of field theory by a phenomenological scalar field model.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, new comments and 8 references added. Accepted for publication in Physics Letters

A Bayesian estimate of the CMB-large-scale structure cross-correlation

Evidences for late-time acceleration of the Universe are provided by multiple probes, such as Type Ia supernovae, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS). In this work, we focus on the integrated Sachs--Wolfe (ISW) effect, i.e., secondary CMB fluctuations generated by evolving gravitational potentials due to the transition between, e.g., the matter and dark energy (DE) dominated phases. Therefore, assuming a flat universe, DE properties can be inferred from ISW detections. We present a Bayesian approach to compute the CMB--LSS cross-correlation signal. The method is based on the estimate of the likelihood for measuring a combined set consisting of a CMB temperature and a galaxy contrast maps, provided that we have some information on the statistical properties of the fluctuations affecting these maps. The likelihood is estimated by a sampling algorithm, therefore avoiding the computationally demanding techniques of direct evaluation in either pixel or harmonic space. As local tracers of the matter distribution at large scales, we used the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) galaxy catalog and, for the CMB temperature fluctuations, the ninth-year data release of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP9). The results show a dominance of cosmic variance over the weak recovered signal, due mainly to the shallowness of the catalog used, with systematics associated with the sampling algorithm playing a secondary role as sources of uncertainty. When combined with other complementary probes, the method presented in this paper is expected to be a useful tool to late-time acceleration studies in cosmology.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. We extended the previous analyses including WMAP9 Q, V and W channels, besides the ILC map. Updated to match accepted ApJ versio

New Cosmic Accelerating Scenario without Dark Energy

We propose an alternative, nonsingular, cosmic scenario based on gravitationally induced particle production. The model is an attempt to evade the coincidence and cosmological constant problems of the standard model ($\Lambda$CDM) and also to connect the early and late time accelerating stages of the Universe. Our space-time emerges from a pure initial de Sitter stage thereby providing a natural solution to the horizon problem. Subsequently, due to an instability provoked by the production of massless particles, the Universe evolves smoothly to the standard radiation dominated era thereby ending the production of radiation as required by the conformal invariance. Next, the radiation becomes sub-dominant with the Universe entering in the cold dark matter dominated era. Finally, the negative pressure associated with the creation of cold dark matter (CCDM model) particles accelerates the expansion and drives the Universe to a final de Sitter stage. The late time cosmic expansion history of the CCDM model is exactly like in the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, however, there is no dark energy. This complete scenario is fully determined by two extreme energy densities, or equivalently, the associated de Sitter Hubble scales connected by $\rho_I/\rho_f=(H_I/H_f)^{2} \sim 10^{122}$, a result that has no correlation with the cosmological constant problem. We also study the linear growth of matter perturbations at the final accelerating stage. It is found that the CCDM growth index can be written as a function of the $\Lambda$ growth index, $\gamma_{\Lambda} \simeq 6/11$. In this framework, we also compare the observed growth rate of clustering with that predicted by the current CCDM model. Performing a $\chi^{2}$ statistical test we show that the CCDM model provides growth rates that match sufficiently well with the observed growth rate of structure.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. D. (final version, some references have corrected). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1106.193