Hidden Negative Energies in Strongly Accelerated Universes

We point out that theories of cosmological acceleration which have equation of state, w, such that 1+w is small but positive may still secretly violate the null energy condition. This violation implies the existence of observers for whom the background has infinitely negative energy densities, despite the fact that the perturbations are free of ghosts and gradient instabilities.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. v2 reflects version accepted for publication in PRD. Changes: additional discussion of gauge-dependence in perturbed cosmologie

Dark Matter via Many Copies of the Standard Model

We propose a cosmological scenario based on the assumption that the Standard Model possesses a large number of copies. It is demonstrated that baryons in the hidden copies of the standard model can naturally account for the dark matter. The right abundance of the hidden-sector baryons and the correct spectrum of density perturbations are simultaneously generated during modulated reheating. We show that for the natural values of inflaton coupling constants, dictated by unitarity, the dark-matter abundance is predicted to be proportional to the ratio of observed cosmological parameters: the square of the amplitude of cosmological perturbations and the baryon-to-photon number ratio.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

B-Inflation

We propose a novel model of inflation based on a large class of covariant effective actions containing only the second derivatives of a scalar field. The initial conditions leading to the inflationary solutions in this model are rather generic. The graceful exit from the inflationary regime is natural once the first order derivative terms are included.Comment: 21 pages,10 figures, references added, Fig.1 slightly corrected, discussion about stability is extende

Looking beyond the horizon

In this short talk we review our results from the paper hep-th/0604075 with the main stress on the issues of causality and acoustic metric in eikonal approximation. In addition we correct the formula for the redshift of sound signals from our original work. We show that, if there exists a special kind of Born-Infeld type scalar field, then one can send information from inside a black hole. This information is encoded in perturbations of the field propagating in non-trivial scalar field backgrounds, which serve as a "new ether". Although the action of the theory is manifestly Lorentz-invariant the non-trivial solutions break this symmetry spontaneously, allowing, the superluminal propagation of perturbations with respect to this "new ether". We found the stationary solution for background, which describes the accretion of the scalar field onto a black hole. Examining the propagation of small perturbations around this solution we show that the signals emitted inside the Schwarzschild horizon can reach an observer located outside the black hole. Thus the accreting field forms a hydrodynamical analog of a black hole whose horizon is inside of the gravitational black hole drawing in the scalar field.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of 11th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation, and Relativistic Field Theories, Berlin, Germany, 23-29 Jul 200

When Matter Matters

We study a recently proposed scenario for the early universe: Subluminal Galilean Genesis. We prove that without any other matter present in the spatially flat Friedmann universe, the perturbations of the Galileon scalar field propagate with a speed at most equal to the speed of light. This proof applies to all cosmological solutions -- to the whole phase space. However, in a more realistic situation, when one includes any matter which is not directly coupled to the Galileon, there always exists a region of phase space where these perturbations propagate superluminally, indeed with arbitrarily high speed. We illustrate our analytic proof with numerical computations. We discuss the implications of this result for the possible UV completion of the model.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. v2 reflects version accepted for publication in JCAP. Changes include a reorganisation of section order, a new figure 1 and additional reference