Pair Creation of Dilaton Black Holes in Extended Inflation

Dilatonic Charged Nariai instantons mediate the nucleation of black hole pairs during extended chaotic inflation. Depending on the dilaton and inflaton fields, the black holes are described by one of two approximations in the Lorentzian regime. For each case we find Euclidean solutions that satisfy the no boundary proposal. The complex initial values of the dilaton and inflaton are determined, and the pair creation rate is calculated from the Euclidean action. Similar to standard inflation, black holes are abundantly produced near the Planck boundary, but highly suppressed later on. An unusual feature we find is that the earlier in inflation that the dilatonic black holes are created, the more highly charged they can be.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 6 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Coupled Negative magnetocapacitance and magnetic susceptibility in a Kagome staircase-like compound Co3V2O8

The dielectric constant of the Kagome staircase-like Co3V2O8 polycrystalline compound has been measured as function of temperature and magnetic field up to 14T. It is found that the application of an external magnetic field suppresses the anomaly for the dielectric constant beyond 6.1K. Furthermore, its magnetic field dependence reveals a negative magnetocapacitance which is proportional to the magnetic susceptibility, suggesting a common magnetostrictive origin for the magnetic field dependence of the two quantities. This result is very different from that obtained from the isostructural compound Ni3V2O8 that presents a peak in the dielectric constant at the incommensurate magnetic phase transition coupled to a sign change of the magnetocapacitance

The radial BAO scale and Cosmic Shear, a new observable for Inhomogeneous Cosmologies

As an alternative explanation of the dimming of distant supernovae it has recently been advocated that we live in a special place in the Universe near the centre of a large spherical void described by a Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) metric. In this scenario, the Universe is no longer homogeneous and isotropic, and the apparent late time acceleration is actually a consequence of spatial gradients. We propose in this paper a new observable, the normalized cosmic shear, written in terms of directly observable quantities, and calculable in arbitrary inhomogeneous cosmologies. This will allow future surveys to determine whether we live in a homogeneous universe or not. In this paper we also update our previous observational constraints from geometrical measures of the background cosmology. We include the Union Supernovae data set of 307 Type Ia supernovae, the CMB acoustic scale and the first measurement of the radial baryon acoustic oscillation scale. Even though the new data sets are significantly more constraining, LTB models -- albeit with slightly larger voids -- are still in excellent agreement with observations, at chi^2/d.o.f. = 307.7/(310-4)=1.005. Together with the paper we also publish the updated easyLTB code used for calculating the models and for comparing them to the observations.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, the code can be downloaded at http://www.phys.au.dk/~haugboel/software.shtm

Effective CP violation in the Standard Model

We study the strength of effective CP violation originating from the CKM matrix in the effective action obtained by integrating out the fermions in the Standard Model. Using results obtained by Salcedo for the effective action in a general chiral gauge model, we find that there are no CKM CP-violating terms to fourth order in a gauge-covariant derivative expansion that is non-perturbative in the Higgs field. The details of the calculation suggest that, at zero temperature, the strength of CP violation is approximately independent of the overall scale of the Yukawa couplings. Thus, order of magnitude estimates based on Jarlskog's invariant could be too small by a factor of about 10^{17}.Comment: 19 pages, no figure

Can we avoid dark energy?

The idea that we live near the centre of a large, nonlinear void has attracted attention recently as an alternative to dark energy or modified gravity. We show that an appropriate void profile can fit both the latest cosmic microwave background and supernova data. However, this requires either a fine-tuned primordial spectrum or a Hubble rate so low as to rule these models out. We also show that measurements of the radial baryon acoustic scale can provide very strong constraints. Our results present a serious challenge to void models of acceleration.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; minor changes; version published in Phys. Rev. Let

Metric perturbations in two-field inflation

We study the metric perturbations produced during inflation in models with two scalar fields evolving simultaneously. In particular, we emphasize how the large-scale curvature perturbation $\zeta$ on fixed energy density hypersurfaces may not be conserved in general for multiple field inflation due to the presence of entropy as well as adiabatic fluctuations. We show that the usual method of solving the linearized perturbation equations is equivalent to the recently proposed analysis of Sasaki and Stewart in terms of the perturbed expansion along neighboring trajectories in field-space. In the case of a separable potential it is possible to compute in the slow-roll approximation the spectrum of density perturbations and gravitational waves at the end of inflation. In general there is an inequality between the ratio of tensor to scalar perturbations and the tilt of the gravitational wave spectrum, which becomes an equality when only adiabatic perturbations are possible and $\zeta$ is conserved.Comment: RevTex, 9 pages, 1 uuencoded figure appended, also available on WWW via http://star.maps.susx.ac.uk/index.htm

Large scale structure simulations of inhomogeneous LTB void models

We perform numerical simulations of large scale structure evolution in an inhomogeneous Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) model of the Universe. We follow the gravitational collapse of a large underdense region (a void) in an otherwise flat matter-dominated Einstein-deSitter model. We observe how the (background) density contrast at the centre of the void grows to be of order one, and show that the density and velocity profiles follow the exact non-linear LTB solution to the full Einstein equations for all but the most extreme voids. This result seems to contradict previous claims that fully relativistic codes are needed to properly handle the non-linear evolution of large scale structures, and that local Newtonian dynamics with an explicit expansion term is not adequate. We also find that the (local) matter density contrast grows with the scale factor in a way analogous to that of an open universe with a value of the matter density OmegaM(r) corresponding to the appropriate location within the void.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, published in Physical Review

Lambda-inflation and CMB anisotropy

We explore a broad class of three-parameter inflationary models, called the $\Lambda$-inflation, and its observational predictions: high abundance of cosmic gravitational waves consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum of primordial cosmological perturbations, the non-power-law wing-like spectrum of matter density perturbations, high efficiency of these models to meet current observational tests, and others. We show that a parity contribution of the gravitational waves and adiabatic density perturbations into the large-scale temperature anisotropy, T/S $\sim 1$, is a common feature of $\Lambda$-inflation; the maximum values of T/S (basically not larger than 10) are reached in models where (i) the local spectrum shape of density perturbations is flat or slightly red ($n_S{}_\sim^< 1$), and (ii) the residual potential energy of the inflaton is near the GUT scale ($V_0^{{1/4}} \sim 10^{16} GeV$). The conditions to find large T/S in the paradigm of cosmic inflation and the relationship of T/S to the ratio of the power spectra, $r$, and to the inflationary $\gamma$ and Hubble parameters, are discussed. We argue that a simple estimate, T/S$\simeq 3r\simeq 12\gamma \simeq (\frac{H}{6\times 10^{13}{\rm GeV}})^2$, is true for most known inflationary solutions and allows to relate straightforwardly the important parameters of observational and physical cosmology.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures include

CMB observations in LTB universes: Part I: Matching peak positions in the CMB spectrum

Acoustic peaks in the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background in spherically symmetric inhomogeneous cosmological models are studied. At the photon-baryon decoupling epoch, the universe may be assumed to be dominated by non-relativistic matter, and thus we may treat radiation as a test field in the universe filled with dust which is described by the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) solution. First, we give an LTB model whose distance-redshift relation agrees with that of the concordance $\Lambda$CDM model in the whole redshift domain and which is well approximated by the Einstein-de Sitter universe at and before decoupling. We determine the decoupling epoch in this LTB universe by Gamow's criterion and then calculate the positions of acoustic peaks. Thus obtained results are not consistent with the WMAP data. However, we find that one can fit the peak positions by appropriately modifying the LTB model, namely, by allowing the deviation of the distance-redshift relation from that of the concordance $\Lambda$CDM model at $z>2$ where no observational data are available at present. Thus there is still a possibility of explaining the apparent accelerated expansion of the universe by inhomogeneity without resorting to dark energy if we abandon the Copernican principle. Even if we do not take this extreme attitude, it also suggests that local, isotropic inhomogeneities around us may seriously affect the determination of the density contents of the universe unless the possible existence of such inhomogeneities is properly taken into account.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure