The Wide-field High-resolution Infrared TElescope (WHITE)

The Wide-field High-resolution Infrared TElescope (WHITE) will be dedicated in the first years of its life to carrying out a few (well focused in terms of science objectives and time) legacy surveys. WHITE would have an angular resolution of ~0.3'' homogeneous over ~0.7 sq. deg. in the wavelength range 1 - 5 um, which means that we will very efficiently use all the available observational time during night time and day time. Moreover, the deepest observations will be performed by summing up shorter individual frames. We will have a temporal information that can be used to study variable objects. The three key science objectives of WHITE are : 1) A complete survey of the Magellanic Clouds to make a complete census of young stellar objects in the clouds and in the bridge and to study their star formation history and the link with the Milky Way. The interaction of the two clouds with our Galaxy might the closest example of a minor merging event that could be the main driver of galaxy evolution in the last 5 Gyrs. 2) The building of the first sample of dusty supernovae at z<1.2 in the near infrared range (1-5 um) to constrain the equation of state from these obscured objects, study the formation of dust in galaxies and build the first high resolution sample of high redshift galaxies observed in their optical frame 3) A very wide weak lensing survey over that would allow to estimate the equation of state in a way that would favourably compete with space projects.Comment: Invited talk to the 2nd ARENA Conference : "The Astrophysical Science Cases at Dome C" Potsdam 17-21 September, 200

Massive scalar states localized on a de Sitter brane

We consider a brane scenario with a massive scalar field in the five-dimensional bulk. We study the scalar states that are localized on the brane, which is assumed to be de Sitter. These localized scalar modes are massive in general, their effective four-dimensional mass depending on the mass of the five-dimensional scalar field, on the Hubble parameter in the brane and on the coupling between the brane tension and the bulk scalar field. We then introduce a purely four-dimensional approach based on an effective potential for the projection of the scalar field in the brane, and discuss its regime of validity. Finally, we explore the quasi-localized scalar states, which have a non-zero width that quantifies their probability of tunneling from the brane into the bulk.Comment: 14 pages; 5 figure

Bulk gravitons from a cosmological brane

We investigate the emission of gravitons by a cosmological brane into an Anti de Sitter five-dimensional bulk spacetime. We focus on the distribution of gravitons in the bulk and the associated production of `dark radiation' in this process. In order to evaluate precisely the amount of dark radiation in the late low-energy regime, corresponding to standard cosmology, we study numerically the emission, propagation and bouncing off the brane of bulk gravitons.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, minor corrections. Final versio

Gauss-Bonnet brane gravity with a confining potential

A brane scenario is envisaged in which the $m$-dimensional bulk is endowed with a Gauss-Bonnet term and localization of matter on the brane is achieved by means of a confining potential. The resulting Friedmann equations on the brane are modified by various extra terms that may be interpreted as the X-matter, providing a possible phenomenological explanation for the accelerated expansion of the universe. The age of the universe in this scenario is studied and shown to be consistent with the present observational data.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, to appear in PR

Non-Gaussian isocurvature perturbations in dark radiation

We study non-Gaussian properties of the isocurvature perturbations in the dark radiation, which consists of the active neutrinos and extra light species, if exist. We first derive expressions for the bispectra of primordial perturbations which are mixtures of curvature and dark radiation isocurvature perturbations. We also discuss CMB bispectra produced in our model and forecast CMB constraints on the nonlinearity parameters based on the Fisher matrix analysis. Some concrete particle physics motivated models are presented in which large isocurvature perturbations in extra light species and/or the neutrino density isocurvature perturbations as well as their non-Gaussianities may be generated. Thus detections of non-Gaussianity in the dark radiation isocurvature perturbation will give us an opportunity to identify the origin of extra light species and lepton asymmetry.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure

Non-linear isocurvature perturbations and non-Gaussianities

We study non-linear primordial adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations and their non-Gaussianity. After giving a general formulation in the context of an extended delta N-formalism, we analyse in detail two illustrative examples. The first is a mixed curvaton-inflaton scenario in which fluctuations of both the inflaton and a curvaton (a light isocurvature field during inflation) contribute to the primordial density perturbation. The second example is that of double inflation involving two decoupled massive scalar fields during inflation. In the mixed curvaton-inflaton scenario we find that the bispectrum of primordial isocurvature perturbations may be large and comparable to the bispectrum of adiabatic curvature perturbations.Comment: 24 pages, typos corrected, references adde

Thermal leptogenesis in brane world cosmology

The thermal leptogenesis in brane world cosmology is studied. In brane world cosmology, the expansion law is modified from the four-dimensional standard cosmological one at high temperature regime in the early universe. As a result, the well-known upper bound on the lightest light neutrino mass induced by the condition for the out-of-equilibrium decay of the lightest heavy neutrino, $\tilde{m}_1 \lesssim 10^{-3}$ eV, can be moderated to be $\tilde{m}_1 \lesssim 10^{-3} {eV} \times (M_1/T_t)^2$ in the case of $T_t \leq M_1$ with the lightest heavy neutrino mass ($M_1$) and the ``transition temperature'' ($T_t$), at which the modified expansion law in brane world cosmology is smoothly connecting with the standard one. This implies that the degenerate mass spectrum of the light neutrinos can be consistent with the thermal leptogenesis scenario. Furthermore, as recently pointed out, the gravitino problem in supersymmetric case can be solved if the transition temperature is low enough $T_t \lesssim 10^{6-7}$ GeV. Therefore, even in the supersymmetric case, thermal leptogenesis scenario can be successfully realized in brane world cosmology.Comment: 9 pages, final versio

Moduli-Space Approximation for BPS Brane-Worlds

We develop the moduli-space approximation for the low energy regime of BPS-branes with a bulk scalar field to obtain an effective four-dimensional action describing the system. An arbitrary BPS potential is used and account is taken of the presence of matter in the branes and small supersymmetry breaking terms. The resulting effective theory is a bi-scalar tensor theory of gravity. In this theory, the scalar degrees of freedom can be stabilized naturally without the introduction of additional mechanisms other than the appropriate BPS potential. We place observational constraints on the shape of the potential and the global configuration of branes.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Bulk gravitational field and dark radiation on the brane in dilatonic brane world

We discuss the connection between the dark radiation on the brane and the bulk gravitational field in a dilatonic brane world model proposed by Koyama and Takahashi where the exact solutions for the five dimensional cosmological perturbations can be obtained analytically. It is shown that the dark radiation perturbation is related to the non-normalizable Kaluza-Klein (KK) mode of the bulk perturbations. For the de Sitter brane in the anti-de Sitter bulk, the squared mass of this KK mode is $2 H^2$ where $H$ is the Hubble parameter on the brane. This mode is shown to be connected to the excitation of small black hole in the bulk in the long wavelength limit. The exact solution for an anisotropic stress on the brane induced by this KK mode is found, which plays an important role in the calculation of cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies in the brane world.Comment: 11 page

Bulk inflaton shadows of vacuum gravity

We introduce a $(5+m)$-dimensional vacuum description of five-dimensional bulk inflaton models with exponential potentials that makes analysis of cosmological perturbations simple and transparent. We show that various solutions, including the power-law inflation model recently discovered by Koyama and Takahashi, are generated from known $(5+m)$-dimensional vacuum solutions of pure gravity. We derive master equations for all types of perturbations, and each of them becomes a second order differential equation for one master variable supplemented by simple boundary conditions on the brane. One exception is the case for massive modes of scalar perturbations. In this case, there are two independent degrees of freedom, and in general it is difficult to disentangle them into two separate sectors.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, revtex; v2: references adde