9,309 research outputs found
Background radiation from sterile neutrino decay and reionization
Sterile neutrinos are one of the most promising Warm Dark Matter candidates.
By considering their radiative- and pion-decay channels, we derive the allowed
contribution of sterile neutrinos to the X-ray, optical and near-infrared
cosmic backgrounds. The X-ray background puts a strong constraint on the mass
of radiatively decaying neutrinos (m <= 14 keV), whereas the allowed mass range
for pion-decay neutrinos (for a particle lifetime > 4 X 10^17 s) is 150 <=
m/MeV <= 500. Taking into account these constraints, we find that sterile
neutrinos do not significantly contribute to the optical and near-infrared
background. We further consider the impact of sterile neutrinos on
reionization. We find that the Thomson optical depth due to sterile neutrinos
is tau_e = (0.4-3) X 10^-2 in the case of radiative decays, and it is ~10^-3
for the pion-decay channel. We conclude that these particles must have played
only a minor role in cosmic reionization history.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, replaced with revised version, accepted for
publication in MNRA
On the Embedding of Space-Time Symmetries into Simple Superalgebras
We explore the embedding of Spin groups of arbitrary dimension and signature
into simple superalgebras in the case of extended supersymmetry. The
R-symmetry, which generically is not compact, can be chosen compact for all the
cases that are congruent mod 8 to the physical conformal algebra so(,2),
. An grading of the superalgebra is found in all cases.
Central extensions of super translation algebras are studied in this framework.Comment: AMS LaTeX, 16 page
Generalized dimensional reduction of supergravity with eight supercharges
We describe some recent investigation about the structure of generic D=4,5
theories obtained by generalized dimensional reduction of D=5,6 theories with
eight supercharges. We relate the Scherk-Schwarz reduction to a special class
of N=2 no-scale gauged supergravities.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of ``NathFest'' at PASCOS conference,
Northeastern University, Boston, Ma, August 200
Constraining DM through 21 cm observations
Beyond reionization epoch cosmic hydrogen is neutral and can be directly
observed through its 21 cm line signal. If dark matter (DM) decays or
annihilates the corresponding energy input affects the hydrogen kinetic
temperature and ionized fraction, and contributes to the Ly_alpha background.
The changes induced by these processes on the 21 cm signal can then be used to
constrain the proposed DM candidates, among which we select the three most
popular ones: (i) 25-keV decaying sterile neutrinos, (ii) 10-MeV decaying light
dark matter (LDM) and (iii) 10-MeV annihilating LDM. Although we find that the
DM effects are considerably smaller than found by previous studies (due to a
more physical description of the energy transfer from DM to the gas), we
conclude that combined observations of the 21 cm background and of its gradient
should be able to put constrains at least on LDM candidates. In fact, LDM
decays (annihilations) induce differential brightness temperature variations
with respect to the non decaying/annihilating DM case up to Delta_delta T_b=8
(22) mK at about 50 (15) MHz. In principle this signal could be detected both
by current single dish radio telescopes and future facilities as LOFAR;
however, this assumes that ionospheric, interference and foreground issues can
be properly taken care of.Comment: 9 pages, submitted to MNRA
Non-BPS Attractors in 5d and 6d Extended Supergravity
We connect the attractor equations of a certain class of N=2, d=5
supergravities with their (1,0), d=6 counterparts, by relating the moduli space
of non-BPS d=5 black hole/black string attractors to the moduli space of
extremal dyonic black string d=6 non-BPS attractors. For d = 5 real special
symmetric spaces and for N = 4,6,8 theories, we explicitly compute the flat
directions of the black object potential corresponding to vanishing eigenvalues
of its Hessian matrix. In the case N = 4, we study the relation to the (2,0),
d=6 theory. We finally describe the embedding of the N=2, d=5 magic models in
N=8, d=5 supergravity as well as the interconnection among the corresponding
charge orbits.Comment: 1+27 page
On Invariant Structures of Black Hole Charges
We study "minimal degree" complete bases of duality- and "horizontal"-
invariant homogeneous polynomials in the flux representation of two-centered
black hole solutions in two classes of D=4 Einstein supergravity models with
symmetric vector multiplets' scalar manifolds. Both classes exhibit an SL(2,R)
"horizontal" symmetry. The first class encompasses N=2 and N=4 matter-coupled
theories, with semi-simple U-duality given by SL(2,R) x SO(m,n); the analysis
is carried out in the so-called Calabi-Vesentini symplectic frame (exhibiting
maximal manifest covariance) and until order six in the fluxes included. The
second class, exhibiting a non-trivial "horizontal" stabilizer SO(2), includes
N=2 minimally coupled and N=3 matter coupled theories, with U-duality given by
the pseudo-unitary group U(r,s) (related to complex flux representations).
Finally, we comment on the formulation of special Kaehler geometry in terms of
"generalized" groups of type E7.Comment: 1+24 pages; 1 Table. v2 : Eqs. (1.2) and (1.3) added; Eq. (2.87)
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