1,666 research outputs found
Inhomogeneous Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis in Light of Recent Observations
We consider inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis in light of the present
observational situation. Different observations of He-4 and D disagree with
each other, and depending on which set of observations one uses, the estimated
primordial He-4 corresponds to a lower baryon density in standard big bang
nucleosynthesis than what one gets from deuterium. Recent Kamiokande results
rule out a favorite particle physics solution to this tension between He-4 and
D. Inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis can alleviate this tension, but the more
likely solution is systematics in the observations. The upper limit to Omega_b
from inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis is higher than in standard nucleosynthesis,
given that the distance scale of the inhomogeneity is near the optimal value,
which maximizes effects of neutron diffusion. Possible sources of baryon
inhomogeneity include the QCD and electroweak phase transitions. The distance
scale of the inhomogeneities arising from the electroweak transition is too
small for them to have a large effect on nucleosynthesis, but the effect may
still be larger than some of the other small corrections recently incorporated
to SBBN codes.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, REVTe
Quantum Evolution of Inhomogeneities in Curved Space
We obtain the renormalized equations of motion for matter and semi-classical
gravity in an inhomogeneous space-time. We use the functional Schrodinger
picture and a simple Gaussian approximation to analyze the time evolution of
the model, and we establish the renormalizability of this
non-perturbative approximation. We also show that the energy-momentum tensor in
this approximation is finite once we consider the usual mass and coupling
constant renormalizations, without the need of further geometrical
counter-terms.Comment: 22 page
Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Mutual Ion Diffusion
We present a study of inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis with emphasis on
transport phenomena. We combine a hydrodynamic treatment to a nuclear reaction
network and compute the light element abundances for a range of inhomogeneity
parameters. We find that shortly after annihilation of electron-positron pairs,
Thomson scattering on background photons prevents the diffusion of the
remaining electrons. Protons and multiply charged ions then tend to diffuse
into opposite directions so that no net charge is carried. Ions with Z>1 get
enriched in the overdense regions, while protons diffuse out into regions of
lower density. This leads to a second burst of nucleosynthesis in the overdense
regions at T<20 keV, leading to enhanched destruction of deuterium and lithium.
We find a region in the parameter space at 2.1E-10<eta<5.2E-10 where
constraints
7Li/H<10^{-9.7} and D/H<10^{-4.4} are satisfied simultaneously.Comment: 9 pages, minor changes to match the PRD versio
Stochastic Isocurvature Baryon Fluctuations, Baryon Diffusion, and Primordial Nucleosynthesis
We examine effects on primordial nucleosynthesis from a truly random spatial
distribution in the baryon-to-photon ratio (). We generate stochastic
fluctuation spectra characterized by different spectral indices and
root-mean-square fluctuation amplitudes. For the first time we explicitly
calculate the effects of baryon diffusion on the nucleosynthesis yields of such
stochastic fluctuations. We also consider the collapse instability of
large-mass-scale inhomogeneities. Our results are generally applicable to any
primordial mechanism producing fluctuations in which can be
characterized by a spectral index. In particular, these results apply to
primordial isocurvature baryon fluctuation (PIB) models. The amplitudes of
scale-invariant baryon fluctuations are found to be severely constrained by
primordial nucleosynthesis. However, when the distribution is
characterized by decreasing fluctuation amplitudes with increasing length
scale, surprisingly large fluctuation amplitudes on the baryon diffusion scale
are allowed.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages and 4 figures, aas2pp4.st
Large Scale Inhomogeneities from the QCD Phase Transition
We examine the first-order cosmological QCD phase transition for a large
class of parameter values, previously considered unlikely. We find that the
hadron bubbles can nucleate at very large distance scales, they can grow as
detonations as well as deflagrations, and that the phase transition may be
completed without reheating to the critical temperature. For a subset of the
parameter values studied, the inhomogeneities generated at the QCD phase
transition might have a noticeable effect on nucleosynthesis.Comment: 15 LaTeX pages + 6 PostScript figures appended at the end of the
file, HU-TFT-94-1
Application of beam deconvolution technique to power spectrum estimation for CMB measurements
We present two novel methods for the estimation of the angular power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. We assume an absolute CMB experiment with arbitrary asymmetric beams and arbitrary sky coverage. The methods differ from the earlier ones in that the power spectrum is estimated directly from the time-ordered data, without first compressing the data into a sky map, and they take into account the effect of asymmetric beams. In particular, they correct the beam-induced leakage from temperature to polarization. The methods are applicable to a case where part of the sky has been masked out to remove foreground contamination, leaving a pure CMB signal, but incomplete sky coverage. The first method (deconvolution quadratic maximum likelihood) is derived as the optimal quadratic estimator, which simultaneously yields an unbiased spectrum estimate and minimizes its variance. We successfully apply it to multipoles up to l = 200. The second method is derived as a weak-signal approximation from the first one. It yields an unbiased estimate for the full multipole range, but relaxes the requirement of minimal variance. We validate the methods with simulations for the 70 GHz channel of Planck surveyor, and demonstrate that we are able to correct the beam effects in the TT, EE, BB and TE spectra up to multipole l = 1500. Together, the two methods cover the complete multipole range with no gap in between.Peer reviewe
EVAPORATION OF QUARK DROPS DURING THE COSMOLOGICAL Q-H TRANSITION
We have carried out a study of the hydrodynamics of disconnected quark
regions during the final stages of the cosmological quark-hadron transition. A
set of relativistic Lagrangian equations is presented for following the
evaporation of a single quark drop and results from the numerical solution of
this are discussed. A self-similar solution is shown to exist and the formation
of baryon number density inhomogeneities at the end of the drop contraction is
discussed.Comment: 12 pages Phys. Rev. format, uuencoded postscript file including 12
figure
The Quark-Hadron Phase Transition, QCD Lattice Calculations and Inhomogeneous Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
We review recent lattice QCD results for the surface tension at the finite
temperature quark-hadron phase transition and discuss their implications on the
possible scale of inhomogeneities. In the quenched approximation the average
distance between nucleating centers is smaller than the diffusion length of a
protron, so that inhomogeneities are washed out by the time nucleosynthesis
sets in. Consequently the baryon density fluctuations formed by a QCD phase
transition in the early universe cannot significantly affect standard big-bang
nucleosynthesis calculations and certainly cannot allow baryons to close the
universe. At present lattice results are inconclusive when dynamical fermions
are included.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe
On Bubble Growth and Droplet Decay in Cosmological Phase Transitions
We study spherically symmetric bubble growth and droplet decay in first order
cosmological phase transitions, using a numerical code including both the
complete hydrodynamics of the problem and a phenomenological model for the
microscopic entropy producing mechanism at the phase transition surface. The
small-scale effects of finite wall width and surface tension are thus
consistently incorporated. We verify the existence of the different
hydrodynamical growth modes proposed recently and investigate the problem of a
decaying quark droplet in the QCD phase transition. We find that the decaying
droplet leaves behind no rarefaction wave, so that any baryon number
inhomogeneity generated previously should survive the decay.Comment: 10 pages (revtex), 10 figures as uuencoded postscrip
Exploring cosmic origins with CORE : Gravitational lensing of the CMB
Lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is now a well-developed probe of the clustering of the large-scale mass distribution over a broad range of redshifts. By exploiting the non-Gaussian imprints of lensing in the polarization of the CMB, the CORE mission will allow production of a clean map of the lensing deflections over nearly the full-sky. The number of high-SAN modes in this map will exceed current CMB lensing maps by a factor of 40, and the measurement will be sample-variance limited on all scales where linear theory is valid. Here, we summarise this mission product and discuss the science that will follow from its power spectrum and the cross-correlation with other clustering data. For example, the summed mass of neutrinos will be determined to an accuracy of 17 meV combining CORE lensing and CMB two-point information with contemporaneous measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies, three times smaller than the minimum total mass allowed by neutrino oscillation measurements. Lensing has applications across many other science goals of CORE, including the search for B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves. Here, lens-induced B-modes will dominate over instrument noise, limiting constraints on the power spectrum amplitude of primordial gravitational waves. With lensing reconstructed by CORE, one can "delens" the observed polarization internally, reducing the lensing B-mode power by 60 %. This can be improved to 70 % by combining lensing and measurements of the cosmic infrared background from CORE, leading to an improvement of a factor of 2.5 in the error on the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves compared to no delensing (in the null hypothesis of no primordial B-modes). Lensing measurements from CORE will allow calibration of the halo masses of the tens of thousands of galaxy clusters that it will find, with constraints dominated by the clean polarization-based estimators. The 19 frequency channels proposed for CORE will allow accurate removal of Galactic emission from CMB maps. We present initial findings that show that residual Galactic foreground contamination will not be a significant source of bias for lensing power spectrum measurements with CORE.Peer reviewe
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