Evolution of Dark Energy Perturbations for Slotheon Field and Power Spectrum

Within the framework of modified gravity model namely Slotheon model, inspired by the theory of extra dimensions, we explore the behaviour of Dark Energy and the perturbations thereof. The Dark Energy and matter perturbations equations are then derived and solved numerically by defining certain dimensionless variables and properly chosen initial conditions. The results are compared with those for standard quintessence model and $\Lambda$CDM model. The matter power spectrum is obtained and also compared with that for $\Lambda$CDM model. It appears that Dark Energy in Slotheon model is more akin to that for $\Lambda$CDM model than the standard quintessence model.Comment: 20 pages LaTeX, 6 figure

Gravitational Wave Signatures from Domain Wall and Strong First-Order Phase Transitions in a Two Complex Scalar extension of the Standard Model

We consider a simple extension of Standard Model by adding two complex singlet scalars with a $\rm{U}\left(1\right)$ symmetry. A discrete $\mathcal{Z}_2 \times \mathcal{Z}^{\prime}_2$ symmetry is imposed in the model and the added scalars acquire a non zero vacuum expectation value (VEV) when the imposed symmetry is broken spontaneously. The real (CP even) parts of the complex scalars mix with the SM Higgs and give three physical mass eigenstates. One of these physical mass eigenstates is attributed to the SM like Higgs boson with mass 125.09 GeV. In the present scenario, domain walls are formed in the early Universe due to the breaking of discrete $\mathcal{Z}_2 \times \mathcal{Z}^{\prime}_2$ symmetry. In order to ensure the unstability of the domain wall this discrete symmetry is also explicitly broken by adding a bias potential to the Lagrangian. The unstable annihilating domain walls produce a significant amount of gravitational waves (GWs). In addition, we also explore the possibility of the production of GW emission from the strong first-order phase transition. We calculate the intensities and frequencies of each of such gravitational waves originating from two different phenomena of the early Universe namely annihilating domain walls and strong first-order phase transition. Finally, we investigate the observational signatures from these GWs at the future GW detectors such as ALIA, BBO, DECIGO, LISA, TianQin, Taiji, aLIGO, aLIGO+ and pulsar timing arrays such as SKA, IPTA, EPTA, PPTA, NANOGrav11 and NANOGrav12.5.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures and 5 table

Constraining PBH mass distributions from 21cm brightness temperature results and an analytical mapping between probability distribution of 21cm signal and PBH masses

The evaporation of Primordial Black Hole (PBH) via Hawking radiation influences the evolution of Inter Galactic Medium by heating up the latter and consequently affects the 21cm signal originated from the neutral Hydrogen atoms. In this work, we have considered EDGES observational data of 21cm line corresponding to cosmic dawn era to constrain the mass and the abundance of PBHs. In this context, two different PBH mass distributions namely, power law and lognormal mass distributions are considered to estimate the effects of PBH evaporation on the 21cm brightness temperature $T_{21}$. In addition to these two mass distributions, different monochromatic masses are also considered. The impacts of Dark Matter - baryon interactions on $T_{21}$ are also considered in this work along with the influences of PBH evaporation. Furthermore, adopting different monochromatic masses for PBHs, an attempt has been made to formulate a distribution for PBH masses by associating a probability weightage of the $T_{21}$ values (at $z \sim 17.2$), within the range given by EDGES experiment, with the calculated $T_{21}$ values for each of the PBH mass values. The distribution best suited for the present purpose is found to be a combination of an error function and Owen function. Allowed contours in the parameter space of (initial PBH mass-dark matter mass) are obtained.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure

Dark energy in light of the early JWST observations: case for a negative cosmological constant?

Early data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered the existence of a surprisingly abundant population of very massive galaxies at extremely high redshift, which are hard to accommodate within the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. We explore whether the JWST observations may be pointing towards more complex dynamics in the dark energy (DE) sector. Motivated by the ubiquity of anti-de Sitter vacua in string theory, we consider a string-inspired scenario where the DE sector consists of a negative cosmological constant (nCC) and a evolving component with positive energy density on top, whose equation of state is allowed to cross the phantom divide. We show that such a scenario can drastically alter the growth of structure compared to $\Lambda$CDM, and accommodate the otherwise puzzling JWST observations if the dynamical component evolves from the quintessence-like regime in the past to the phantom regime today: in particular, we demonstrate that the presence of a nCC (which requires a higher density for the evolving component) plays a crucial role in enhancing the predicted cumulative comoving stellar mass density. Our work reinforces the enormous potential held by observations of the abundance of high-$z$ galaxies in probing cosmological models and new fundamental physics, including string-inspired ingredients.Comment: 30 pages, 10 sub-figures arranged into 5 figures. v2: additional references added, acknowledgements updated. v3: added two sub-figures (one additional figure) and additional references. Version accepted for publication in JCA

Addressing the high-

We consider a dark energy scenario driven by a scalar field $$\phi$$ with a pseudo-Nambu–Goldstone boson (pNGB) type potential $$V(\phi )=\mu ^4 \left( 1+ \mathrm{cos}(\phi /f) \right)$$. The pNGB originates out of breaking of spontaneous symmetry at a scale f close to Planck mass $$M_\mathrm{{pl}}$$. We consider two cases namely the quintessence dark energy model with pNGB potential and the other, where the standard pNGB action is modified by the terms related to Slotheon cosmology. We demonstrate that for this pNGB potential, high-f problem is better addressed when the interaction between dark matter and dark energy is taken into account and that Slotheon dark energy scenario works even better over quintessence in this respect. To this end, a mass limit for dark matter is also estimated