404 research outputs found
Observational constraints on the spectral index of the cosmological curvature perturbation
We evaluate the observational constraints on the spectral index , in the
context of the CDM hypothesis which represents the simplest viable
cosmology. We first take to be practically scale-independent. Ignoring
reionization, we find at a nominal 2- level . If
we make the more realisitic assumption that reionization occurs when a fraction
to 1 of the matter has collapsed, the 2- lower bound is
unchanged while the 1- bound rises slightly. These constraints are
compared with the prediction of various inflation models. Then we investigate
the two-parameter scale-dependent spectral index, predicted by running-mass
inflation models, and find that present data allow significant scale-dependence
of , which occurs in a physically reasonable regime of parameter space.Comment: ReVTeX, 15 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables, uses epsf.sty Improved
treatment of reionization and small bug fixed in the constant n case; more
convenient parameterization and better treatment of the n dependence in the
CMB anisotropy for the running mass case; conclusions basically unchanged;
references adde
Possible Evidence For Axino Dark Matter In The Galactic Bulge
Recently, the SPI spectrometer on the INTEGRAL satellite observed strong 511
keV line emission from the galactic bulge. Although the angular distribution
(spherically symmetric with width of \sim 9 degree) of this emission is
difficult to account for with traditional astrophysical scenarios, light dark
matter particles could account for the observation. In this letter, we consider
the possibility that decaying axinos in an R-parity violating model of
supersymmetry may be the source of this emission. We find that \sim 1-300 MeV
axinos with R-parity violating couplings can naturally produce the observed
emission.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Version accepted by Physical Review
Leptogenesis with "Fuzzy Mass Shell" for Majorana Neutrinos
We study the mixing of elementary and composite particles. In quantum field
theory the mixing of composite particles originates in the couplings of the
constituent quarks and for neutrinos in self-energy diagrams. In the event that
the incoming and outgoing neutrinos have different masses, the self-energy
diagrams vanish because energy is not conserved but the finite decaying widths
make the mixing possible. We can consider the neutrinos to be "fuzzy" states on
their mass shell and the mixing is understood as the overlap of two
wavefunctions. These considerations restrict the mass difference to be
approximately equal to or smaller than the largest of the two widths: abs(M_i -
M_j) lessorequal max(Gamma_i, Gamma_j).Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Running-mass models of inflation, and their observational constraints
If the inflaton sector is described by softly broken supersymmetry, and the
inflaton has unsuppressed couplings, the inflaton mass will run strongly with
scale. Four types of model are possible. The prediction for the spectral index
involves two parameters, while the COBE normalization involves a third, all of
them calculable functions of the relevant masses and couplings. A crude
estimate is made of the region of parameter space allowed by present
observation.Comment: Latex file, 20 pages, 11 figures, uses epsf.sty. Comment on the
observation of the spectral index scale dependence added; Fig. 3-6 improve
Particle Dark Matter - A Theorist's Perspective
Dark matter is presumably made of some new, exotic particle that appears in
extensions of the Standard Model. After giving a brief overview of some popular
candidates, I discuss in more detail the most appealing case of the
supersymmetric neutralino.Comment: Invited talk at PASCOS--03, Mumbai, Indi
SUSY dark matter(s)
We review here the status of different dark matter candidates in the context
of supersymmetric models, in particular the neutralino as a realization of the
WIMP-mechanism and the gravitino. We give a summary of the recent bounds in
direct and indirect detection and also of the LHC searches relevant for the
dark matter question. We discuss also the implications of the Higgs discovery
for the supersymmetric dark matter models and give the prospects for the future
years.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure
Axino dark matter in brane world cosmology
We discuss dark matter in the brane world scenario. We work in the
Randall-Sundrum type II brane world and assume that the lightest supersymmetric
particle is the axino. We find that the axinos can play the role of cold dark
matter in the universe, provided that the five-dimensional Planck mass is
bounded both from below and from above. This is possible for higher reheating
temperatures compared to the conventional four-dimensional cosmology due to a
novel expansion law for the universe.Comment: 1+11 pages, version submitted to JCA
Tracking Quintessence and Cold Dark Matter Candidates
We study the generation of a kination-dominated phase in the context of a
quintessential model with an inverse-power-law potential and a Hubble-induced
mass term for the quintessence field. The presence of kination is associated
with an oscillating evolution of the quintessence field and the barotropic
index. We find that, in sizeable regions of the parameter space, a tracker
scaling solution can be reached sufficiently early to alleviate the coincidence
problem. Other observational constraints originating from nucleosynthesis, the
inflationary scale, the present acceleration of the universe and the
dark-energy-density parameter can be also met. The impact of this modified
kination-dominated phase on the thermal abundance of cold dark matter
candidates is investigated too. We find that: (i) the enhancement of the relic
abundance of the WIMPs with respect to the standard paradigm, crucially depends
on the hierarchy between the freeze-out temperature and the temperature at
which the extrema in the evolution of the quintessence field are encountered,
and (ii) the relic abundance of e-WIMPs takes its present value close to the
temperature at which the earliest extremum of the evolution of the quintessence
field occurs and, as a consequence, both gravitinos and axinos arise as natural
cold dark matter candidates. In the case of unstable gravitinos, the gravitino
constraint can be satisfied for values of the initial temperature well above
those required in the standard cosmology.Comment: Final versio
Vanishing lung emphysema during chemotherapy for malignant pleural mesothelioma.
We report the case of a 79-year-old man with a tobacco smoke-related left dystrophic bullous emphysema that showed a considerable recovery of the cystic abnormalities during chemotherapy for pleural malignant mesothelioma. We suggest that the disappearance of the dystrophic emphysema could be explained by the combined effect of chemotherapy and pleural disease. We briefly review the literature and we discuss the possible mechanism of this unforeseen manifestation
Probing the stability of superheavy dark matter particles with high-energy neutrinos
Two of the most fundamental properties of the dark matter particle, the mass
and the lifetime, are only weakly constrained by the astronomical and
cosmological evidence of dark matter. We derive in this paper lower limits on
the lifetime of dark matter particles with masses in the range 10 TeV-10^15 TeV
from the non-observation of ultrahigh energy neutrinos in the AMANDA, IceCube,
Auger and ANITA experiments. For dark matter particles which produce neutrinos
in a two body or a three body decay, we find that the dark matter lifetime must
be longer than O(10^26-10^28) s for masses between 10 TeV and the Grand
Unification scale. Finally, we also calculate, for concrete particle physics
scenarios, the limits on the strength of the interactions that induce the dark
matter decay.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added, discussion improved,
matches the version published at JCA
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