String Theory and Pre-big bang Cosmology

In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not necessarily unlikely. In particular, the duality symmetries of string theory suggest scenarios in which the Universe starts inflating from an initial state characterized by very small curvature and interactions. Such a state, being gravitationally unstable, will evolve towards higher curvature and coupling, until string-size effects and loop corrections make the Universe "bounce" into a standard, decreasing-curvature regime. In such a context, the hot big bang of conventional cosmology is replaced by a "hot big bounce" in which the bouncing and heating mechanisms originate from the quantum production of particles in the high-curvature, large-coupling pre-bounce phase. Here we briefly summarize the main features of this inflationary scenario, proposed a quarter century ago. In its simplest version (where it represents an alternative and not a complement to standard slow-roll inflation) it can produce a viable spectrum of density perturbations, together with a tensor component characterized by a "blue" spectral index with a peak in the GHz frequency range. That means, phenomenologically, a very small contribution to a primordial B-mode in the CMB polarization, and the possibility of a large enough stochastic background of gravitational waves to be measurable by present or future gravitational wave detectors.Comment: 25 pages, five figures. Contribution to the special issue of IL NUOVO CIMENTO, published in honor of Gaetano Vilasi on the occasion of his 70-th birthday (Il Nuovo Cimento C, Italian Physical Society, 2015

Squeezed Thermal Vacuum and the Maximum Scale for Inflation

We consider the stimulated emission of gravitons from an initial state of thermal equilibrium, under the action of the cosmic gravitational background field. We find that the low-energy graviton spectrum is enhanced if compared with spontaneous creation from the vacuum; as a consequence, the scale of inflation must be lowered, in order not to exceed the observed CMB quadrupole anisotropy. This effect is particularly important for models based on a symmetry-breaking transition which require, as initial condition, a state of thermal equilibrium at temperatures of the order of the inflation scale.Comment: 13 pages, plain tex, three figures available upon request, to appear in Phys.Rev.D, CERN-TH.6836/9

Primordial Magnetic Fields From String Cosmology

Sufficiently large seeds for generating the observed (inter)galactic magnetic fields emerge naturally in string cosmology from the amplification of electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations due to a dynamical dilaton background. The success of the mechanism depends crucially on two features of the so-called pre-big-bang scenario, an early epoch of dilaton-driven inflation at very small coupling, and a sufficiently long intermediate stringy era preceding the standard radiation-dominated evolution.Comment: 12 pages, latex, two figures available by fax upon reques

Quintessence as a run-away dilaton

We consider a late-time cosmological model based on a recent proposal that the infinite-bare-coupling limit of superstring/M-theory exists and has good phenomenological properties, including a vanishing cosmological constant, and a massless, decoupled dilaton. As it runs away to $+ \infty$, the dilaton can play the role of the quintessence field recently advocated to drive the late-time accelerated expansion of the Universe. If, as suggested by some string theory examples, appreciable deviations from General Relativity persist even today in the dark matter sector, the Universe may smoothly evolve from an initial "focusing" stage, lasting untill radiation--matter equality, to a "dragging" regime, which eventually gives rise to an accelerated expansion with frozen $\Omega(\rm{dark energy})/\Omega(\rm{dark matter})$.Comment: 31 pages, latex, 5 figures included using epsfig. New references added and misprints corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Scalar fluctuations in dilatonic brane-worlds

We derive and solve the full set of scalar perturbation equations for a class of five-dimensional brane--world solutions, with a dilaton scalar field coupled to the bulk cosmological constant and to a 3-brane. The spectrum contains one localized massless scalar mode, to be interpreted as an effective dilaton on the brane, inducing long--range scalar interactions. Two massive scalar modes yield corrections to Newton's law at short distances, which persist even in the limit of vanishing dilaton (namely, in the standard Randall--Sundrum configuration).Comment: 10 pages. Talk presented by V. Bozza at COSMO-01 conference, Rovaniemi, 200

A new approach to the propagation of light-like signals in perturbed cosmological backgrounds

We present a new method to compute the deflection of light rays in a perturbed FLRW geometry. We exploit the properties of the Geodesic Light Cone (GLC) gauge where null rays propagate at constant angular coordinates irrespectively of the given (inhomogeneous and/or anisotropic) geometry. The gravitational deflection of null geodesics can then be obtained, in any other gauge, simply by expressing the angular coordinates of the given gauge in terms of the GLC angular coordinates. We apply this method to the standard Poisson gauge, including scalar perturbations, and give the full result for the deflection effect in terms of the direction of observation and observed redshift up to second order, and up to third order for the leading lensing terms. We also compare our results with those presently available in the literature and, in particular, we provide a new non trivial check of a previous result on the luminosity-redshft relation up to second order in cosmological perturbation theory.Comment: 37 pages, no figures. Typos corrected, comments and references added. Version accepted for publication in JCA

An exact Jacobi map in the geodesic light-cone gauge

The remarkable properties of the recently proposed geodesic light-cone (GLC) gauge allow to explicitly solve the geodetic-deviation equation, and thus to derive an exact expression for the Jacobi map J^A_B(s,o) connecting a generic source s to a geodesic observer o in a generic space time. In this gauge J^A_B factorizes into the product of a local quantity at s times one at o, implying similarly factorized expressions for the area and luminosity distance. In any other coordinate system J^A_B is simply given by expressing the GLC quantities in terms of the corresponding ones in the new coordinates. This is explicitly done, at first and second order, respectively, for the synchronous and Poisson gauge-fixing of a perturbed, spatially-flat cosmological background, and the consistency of the two outcomes is checked. Our results slightly amend previous calculations of the luminosity-redshift relation and suggest a possible non-perturbative way for computing the effects of inhomogeneities on observations based on light-like signals.Comment: 26 pages, no figures. Inconsequential modification of an equation, comments and references added. Version accepted for publication in JCA

String Theory and Pre-big bang Cosmology

In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not necessarily unlikely. In particular, the duality symmetries of string theory suggest scenarios in which the Universe starts inflating from an initial state characterized by very small curvature and interactions. Such a state, being gravitationally unstable, will evolve towards higher curvature and coupling, until string-size effects and loop corrections make the Universe "bounce" into a standard, decreasing-curvature regime. In such a context, the hot big bang of conventional cosmology is replaced by a "hot big bounce" in which the bouncing and heating mechanisms originate from the quantum production of particles in the high-curvature, large-coupling pre-bounce phase. Here we briefly summarize the main features of this inflationary scenario, proposed a quarter century ago. In its simplest version (where it represents an alternative and not a complement to standard slow-roll inflation) it can produce a viable spectrum of density perturbations, together with a tensor component characterized by a "blue" spectral index with a peak in the GHz frequency range. That means, phenomenologically, a very small contribution to a primordial B-mode in the CMB polarization, and the possibility of a large enough stochastic background of gravitational waves to be measurable by present or future gravitational wave detectors.In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not necessarily unlikely. In particular, the duality symmetries of string theory suggest scenarios in which the Universe starts inflating from an initial state characterized by very small curvature and interactions. Such a state, being gravitationally unstable, will evolve towards higher curvature and coupling, until string-size effects and loop corrections make the Universe 'bounce' into a standard, decreasing-curvature regime. In such a context, the hot big bang of conventional cosmology is replaced by a 'hot big bounce' in which the bouncing and heating mechanisms originate from the quantum production of particles in the high-curvature, large-coupling pre-bounce phase. Thanks to the strong coupling there is also an associate production of higher-dimensional branes, which could prepare (and provide the initial conditions for) a subsequent phase of brane-dominated inflation.In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not necessarily unlikely. In particular, the duality symmetries of string theory suggest scenarios in which the Universe starts inflating from an initial state characterized by very small curvature and interactions. Such a state, being gravitationally unstable, will evolve towards higher curvature and coupling, until string-size effects and loop corrections make the Universe "bounce" into a standard, decreasing-curvature regime. In such a context, the hot big bang of conventional cosmology is replaced by a "hot big bounce" in which the bouncing and heating mechanisms originate from the quantum production of particles in the high-curvature, large-coupling pre-bounce phase. Here we briefly summarize the main features of this inflationary scenario, proposed a quarter century ago. In its simplest version (where it represents an alternative and not a complement to standard slow-roll inflation) it can produce a viable spectrum of density perturbations, together with a tensor component characterized by a "blue" spectral index with a peak in the GHz frequency range. That means, phenomenologically, a very small contribution to a primordial B-mode in the CMB polarization, and the possibility of a large enough stochastic background of gravitational waves to be measurable by present or future gravitational wave detectors

Assisting pre-big bang phenomenology through short-lived axions

We present the results of a detailed study of how isocurvature axion fluctuations are converted into adiabatic metric perturbations through axion decay, and discuss the constraints on the parameters of pre-big bang cosmology needed for consistency with present CMB-anisotropy data. The large-scale normalization of temperature fluctuations has a non-trivial dependence both on the mass and on the initial value of the axion. In the simplest, minimal models of pre-big bang inflation, consistency with the COBE normalization requires a slightly tilted (blue) spectrum, while a strictly scale-invariant spectrum requires mild modifications of the minimal backgrounds at large curvature and/or string coupling.Comment: 14 pages, latex, 1 figure included using epsfig. A few typos corrected, two references added, the figure slightly improved. To appear in Phys. Lett.

Constraints on pre-big bang parameter space from CMBR anisotropies

The so-called curvaton mechanism --a way to convert isocurvature perturbations into adiabatic ones-- is investigated both analytically and numerically in a pre-big bang scenario where the role of the curvaton is played by a sufficiently massive Kalb--Ramond axion of superstring theory. When combined with observations of CMBR anisotropies at large and moderate angular scales, the present analysis allows us to constrain quite considerably the parameter space of the model: in particular, the initial displacement of the axion from the minimum of its potential and the rate of evolution of the compactification volume during pre-big bang inflation. The combination of theoretical and experimental constraints favours a slightly blue spectrum of scalar perturbations, and/or a value of the string scale in the vicinity of the SUSY-GUT scale.Comment: 63 pages in Latex style with 14 figures include